Heather Heyer’s Mother: ‘We’ve Just Got Such a Ways to Go’

A year ago this August, the country watched in horror as a white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia turned deadly when one of the ralliers drove a car into a group of counterprotesters, killing one and injuring several others.

For Susan Bro, the horror was personal: The woman killed was her daughter, Heather Heyer, who had gone to the protest to oppose white nationalism.

After Heyer was killed, money poured in from well-wishers. With help from her associates, Bro set up a foundation in Heyer’s name. The Heather Heyer Foundation has spent the past year granting scholarships and working with groups like the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, as well as supporting social-justice causes such as the youth-run group Higher Voices, which the foundation helped set up earlier this year.

I spoke with Bro earlier this week about how her life has changed since Heyer’s death, and how she thinks the country has dealt with the resurgence of white-nationalist groups in the past few years.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

How has your life changed over the past year?

Well, let me explain just how my life was before, and then I’ll explain how my life is now. So of course these