CHARLOTTESVILLE,VA-AUG11: Chanting “White lives matter!” “You will not replace us!” and “Jews will not replace us!” several hundred white nationalists and white supremacists carrying torches marched through the University of Virginia campus last night.
(Photo by Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post)
On Aug 11-12, 2017, white nationalists descended on the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville, Virginia. They were met with counter protestors as clashes became violent. A car was weaponized and driven into the crowd. There was one casualty, Heather Hyer and countless others injured. On Aug 12, 2017 two Virginia State Police officers, H. Jay Cullen, 48 and Berke Bates, 40 were killed when their helicopter crashed while doing surveillance work during Saturday’s white nationalist rally.
Molly Roberts, senior photo editor at National Geographic Magazine and member of the board of directors for Women Photojournalists of Washington (WPOW) sits down with award-winning photojournalist and WPOW vice president Evelyn Hockstein to discuss her recent experiences covering the recent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia and her career as a photojournalist.
Evelyn Hockstein is an award-winning photojournalist who has worked in more than 70 countries for news outlets including The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time, and Newsweek, as well as humanitarian organizations including The World Health Organization, The United Nations Refugee Agency, The CDC Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She has won two Pictures of the Year International awards, the Days Japan International Photojournalism award, and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Recent assignments include documenting climate change north of the Bering Strait, the Opioid epidemic in Ohio, and access to abortion in Mississippi. Based in Washington, DC, Evelyn is currently the vice president of the Women Photojournalists of Washington.
Molly: What were your thoughts when you got this assignment from the Washington Post to cover Charlottesville, Virginia?
Evelyn: I knew the march was going to be very contentious and upsetting. My editor Mark Miller made sure I had a helmet, goggles, and a gas mask. I was worried about a little bit of violence – meaning scuffles, clashes, tear gas or getting caught in the middle of a brawl. I could not have imagined that someone would be murdered because a car was weaponized, even though we see it happening everywhere else in the world. My biggest fear that day was that one person would lose control and let off a shot, and things would spiral out of control. There could have been a shootout, a massacre. There was so much tension and anger in the air.
When it got started on Friday night, I couldn’t believe this type of racism was happening 2017. To see people carrying tiki torches across the University of Virginia campus which has this antebellum feel, the scene reminded me of images from history books. I was transported to a different era – it looked like people were marching to a lynching. The effect was to terrorize people and it absolutely worked.
CHARLOTTESVILLE,VA-AUG12: Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA, August 12, 2017. (Photo by Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post)
Molly: There were so many guns, what was your reaction?
Evelyn: During my career, I’ve been around a lot of guns, but they are usually carried by soldiers or police. It is very scary to be around so many weapons, when you think about what could happen. Being surrounded by guns does not make me feel safer or more protected. One of the more alarming things I saw were the militia groups. They were armed and outfitted like the military, but were not the US military. They were civilians calling themselves a militia, and I don’t expect civilians to be walking down main street acting like an army who controls the streets or the town or the protestors. When you look around at so many armed people, you can’t help but think if one shot goes off this could be a massacre. I also can’t imagine that if a large group of black men or Muslims in a self-declared “militia” turned up to “keep the peace” and were carrying machine guns and wearing camo, they would be tolerated in the same way.
Molly: How did this event affect you personally?
Evelyn: That’s a tough question… It has changed me and it has changed everyone in the United States. I went there and thought about this initially as a protest of racism, primarily white vs. black, the legacy of slavery and the Civil War. What I found was the event was extremely anti-Semitic. I wasn’t expecting that, I haven’t experienced much anti-Semitism in my life.
Saturday morning I saw this guy wearing a tee-shirt with a swastika and picture of Adolf Hitler on it. Where the heck do you even get a shirt like that? Anyway, I wanted to interview him, so I said I work for the Washington Post and asked him why he came to Charlottesville. He told me he came to stop white genocide, and then babbled on about the Jews taking over Europe and some plot with Muslims. A minute after he finished, he came over to me to check my name on my press badge and said, “I should’ve known the two journalists I talked to were Semites”.
I did grow up with Judaism being a big part of my identity, the Holocaust and World War II were not distant memories for my parents and grandparents. But as an American woman, I don’t really think about that part of my heritage as my primary identity in my day to day interactions. I am a woman, and think about my struggles as a woman in the professional world, especially in a very male profession like photojournalism, the ongoing battle to protect a woman’s right to choose, equal pay, women’s issues in general. At this event, I did not feel like it was my primary identity, I just felt like I was in Nazi Germany and wearing an invisible yellow star crossed with segregation and the KKK. On Saturday by the Robert E. Lee statue, one man looked at me very studiously and said, “you have a really strong Jew thing going on with your face”. I was so taken aback, it was such a strange thing to hear. I didn’t engage. I’m not going to argue or debate, that’s not my job as a journalist, and certainly not about how Jewish my face looks.
CHARLOTTESVILLE,VA-AUG12: Clashes at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA, August 12, 2017. (Photo by Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post)
Molly: I know you have Jewish heritage. It must have been hard to hear the chants, “Jews will not replace us”.
Evelyn: During the torch light march, I couldn’t believe what these white supremacists were saying. “You will not replace us – Jews will not replace us”, along with other hateful sentiments. It didn’t make sense. As I watched these young men in their 20’s, I didn’t understand where this deep hatred anger came from, what made them so disaffected at such a young age, what made them reject fundamental human values, not just American values. But historically it happens all the time. I saw this in Kenya when neighbors turned on each other, killing each other, over the disputed 2007 election, it was devastating to witness.
Molly: Were you close by when the car plowed into the crowd?
Evelyn: I arrived in the aftermath, after the street had been already blocked off. I was several blocks away filing after the march ended, so I was not near where it happened.
A few hours after Heather Heyer was killed – I realized what a turning point this was for our country. The events in Charlottesville changed the United States, this was a seminal moment in our history.
Molly: Now that we’ve seen this, the Charlottesville Mayor is saying nothing like this should happen again?
Evelyn: I still believe protecting free speech is one of the most fundamental rights we can do as Americans, to protect all of our freedoms. What we learned in Charlottesville is that when there is a real threat of violence the parameters need to be re-examined. No one should be killed for standing up to hate speech. Heather Heyer’s death is so heartbreaking. Oil and water don’t mix, the two sides should be separated, but free speech must be protected, no matter how repugnant that speech is.
CHARLOTTESVILLE,VA-AUG13: Mourning the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Virginia, after a day of hate and terror ended in tragedy.(Photo by Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post)
Molly: What is the answer to protecting free speech?
Evelyn: I think Boston was the answer. It was hopeful, it was peaceful. Boston was a repudiation of the ugliness we saw in Charlottesville. We saw a group of fifty far right demonstrators hold a “free speech rally”, but they were met with the voices of tens of thousands of counter protestors who came out peacefully to stand up to hate, and to tell the world, “we don’t like what you have to say.”
Molly: Your images have been seen widely, how does it feel to know that your view of the event characterized this event worldwide?
Evelyn: I’m glad I was there, honored my images are out there and grateful to have them well received. People were horrified by the events in Charlottesville, it was an unveiling of tremendous hatred, and I’m glad I was a witness and able to share my pictures on a global platform. This event was created to terrorize people and it must be documented.
Molly: Do you think this coverage can change hearts and minds?
Evelyn: Definitely. The most hopeful, healing thing that has happened since Charlottesville – I feel is people are coming out and talking about how disgusting the event was. There are always going to be hateful ideologies and the freedom to express those ideologies — but you can stand up against hate, show up in greater numbers, and we are seeing that happen. The pictures from Charlottesville force us to confront the reality of who we are as Americans against the ideals for which we strive. We are confronting our identity in the faces of those who clashed in the streets, forcing us to ask questions about who we are and how we define ourselves.
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