Former President Barack Obama and
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have condemned a white nationalist
rally that took place on Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The groups descended on Charlottesville
to protest the city's decision to remove a statue of Confederate
General Robert E. Lee. One woman died and 19 were injured when a man
drove a car into a crowd of counterprotesters. Twenty-year-old James
Alex Fields, Jr. of Maumee, Ohio was arrested by police.
Without citing the incident, Obama
tweeted a quote from Nelson Mandela's autobiography Long Walk to
Freedom.
“No one is born hating another person
because of the color his skin or his background or his religion.
People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be
taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than
its opposite,” the former president messaged.
Clinton tweeted that her heart was in
Charlottesville, and “with everyone made to feel unsafe in their
country.”
“But the incitement of hatred that
got us here is as real and condemnable as the white supremacists in
our streets. Every minute we allow this to persist through tacit
encouragement or inaction is a disgrace & corrosive to our
values.”
“Now is the time for leaders to be
strong in their words & deliberate in their actions,” she
added, a possible reference to President Donald Trump, who failed to
acknowledge in his response the role white nationalists played in the
violence.