At the East Spring Street Neighborhood Park in New Albany, community members and councilmen gather for a vigil hosted by the East Spring St. Neighborhood Association (ESNA). The crowd gathered in response to Charlottesville, VA, where this past weekend a woman was killed and others injured when a car drove into a crowd of people protesting the rally of white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

Pictured left: Billy Shurtz. ESNA vice president Mark Sanders said, “We want to stand in solidarity with the people of Charlottesville and show that not everyone feels that way.” Religious leaders from three types of churches, Kate Frakes, who just recently moved to the area,the police Chief Todd Bailey and councilmen were all gathered at the vigil Tuesday.

From left to right: Mark Henderson, John Wilcox, Susan Ryan. “In the 60’s, J. Edgar Hoover was asked to define pornography, and he said I can’t define pornography but I know it when I see it. That is what it’s like with hate,” said Henderson. “If we stand there and let someone get discriminated against because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, it’s just a matter of time before that hate turns back onto us,” said Henderson.

Greg Roberts, assistant to the dean of arts and letters and president of ESNA. According to Roberts, ha and Jana Herman, board member of ESNA, planned the vigil after they noticed that nothing was being done in the community to honor what happened over the weekend.

“You may live there and we may live here, but we are touched by you and you are touched by us,” Roberts said. Prior to the speeches, Roberts lead those in attendance in a chant: “Not in our neighborhoods, not in our city, not in our nation.”

Julia Adams, IUS psychology sophomore, pictured left. “To be quite is to be complacent,“ Julia Adams said. After attending the Black Lives Matters protest on Sunday in Louisville, Adams said she wanted to attend a more reflective event and to support her community. “I’m proud that my community actually had something to say about it,” she said.