As part of a wide-spread community discussion on the presence of monuments to Confederate Civil War figures, the Charlottesville city council voted to remove a statue of General Robert E. Lee. Multiple rallies were then held to protest the statueâs removal. A Ku Klux Klan (KKK) rally on July 8, 2017 (MMWR Week 27) and a Unite the Right rally on August 12, 2017 (MMWR Week 32) held in Charlottesville both resulted in violence and media attention. The violence associated with the Unite the Right rally included fatalities connected to motor vehicle and helicopter crashes.
