UVA to repay old KKK donation with aid to Charlottesville rally victims

The University of Virginia is repaying a 1921 pledge from the Ku Klux Klan with a donation to those injured in Charlottesville’s deadly white nationalist protest, the school announced Thursday.

The university will donate an inflation-adjusted $12,500 to the Charlottesville Patient Support Fund, which helps pay the medical expenses of those who were hurt in the Aug. 12 melee.

The KKK pledged $1,000 to the university in 1921, according to UVA President Teresa Sullivan, while it’s unclear if the payment was ever made. 

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“We’re going to acknowledge the pledge, and we’re going do so in a way that would be as disagreeable as possible for any remnants of the KKK who may be watching,” Sullivan said. 

“In other words, we are allocating that century-old pledge from white supremacists to heal the wounds inflicted by the dying vestiges of white supremacy that struck Charlottesville last month. I hope any remaining members of the KKK will appreciate the irony.”

According to The Daily Progress, several student groups have urged the university recently to acknowledge and repay the KKK pledge, calling for donations to multicultural organizations at UVA. 

Charlottesville became a flashpoint of racial tension last month, when white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups gathered in the college town, nominally to protest the removal of a Confederate statue from a local park. 

But the demonstrations turned violent as hate groups clashed with counterprotesters. One person died and 19 others were injured when a car allegedly driven by a man with ties to neo-Nazi groups plowed through a crowd of counterdemonstrators.