For about a decade now, Ézé Amos has walked all over the city with his camera, capturing slices of Charlottesville life — friends catching up over drinks on the Miller’s patio, children dancing to a busker’s tune. He knows everyone, and everyone knows him.

Amos was out there, with his camera and with his community, during the weekend of the Unite the Right rally in August 2017, documenting the horrors and dodging punches from a neo-Nazi wearing a Hitler t-shirt.

He hasn’t stopped chronicling the extraordinary suffering the community has endured since. He’s also documented the well of support and comfort people have offered to one another.

A man poses for a picture outside in front of a mural.
Charlottesville photographer Ézé Amos Credit: Charlotte Rene Woods Charlottesville Tommorrow

This week, Amos debuts “The Story of Us,” a series of 36 large-scale, never-before-seen photographs taken during Unite the Right and after. He’s shared plenty of those photos with local, national, and international news outlets, but he kept these 36 for himself — until now.

The photos, which do not depict violence, are printed on weatherproof material and suspended in the trees along the Downtown Mall, where they’ll remain through the end of September. Each has an accompanying recording, in which the photo subjects tell their own stories, in their own voices.

Amos was surprised by what he learned throughout “The Story of Us” interview process. Here, he describes in his own words where he was when he took some of the images, why he clicked the shutter when he did, and what it was like to hear about those moments years later.

Aug. 12, 2017, 2:16 p.m.

In the very center of the photo is a woman with long hair and a cloth headband. She is kneeling on asphalt and speaking to two people sitting on the ground in front of her with their backs to the camera. Behind the woman is an orange backboard for medical transport, as well as a chaotic jumble of emergency medicine vehicles, stretchers, and workers.
Minutes after James Alex Fields drove his car into a crowd of counter-protestors on Fourth Street SE, local therapist Shell Stern talks with survivors of the attack just feet away from where it occurred. Courtesy Ézé Amos

Her name is Shell, Shell Stern. She’s a good friend of mine, a therapist here in town.

The car had just run into the crowd.

I was busy photographing David Duke [a Ku Klux Klan leader] at McIntire Park when we got the message that the crash…. So I drove downtown, parked somewhere — I can’t remember where — and then I ran to Water Street. There was just confusion everywhere. This was one of the first things I saw, and I saw from a long shot. This photo, it tells me so much about what had happened. And she was just like, trying to check in with them and see how they were doing and all that. And, it was just so…this photo just did so much for me in terms of helping to capture that moment and what was going on, without showing violence. Without showing the scene.

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I needed to hear her story so badly, and that’s what prompted this whole project. I reached out to her, she said yes, and her reaction is what really gave me the push to do this project. When I told her about this, and I showed her the photo, she teared up, and she said to me, “I want to tell you about that day.” And then I realized, folks want to talk. Folks want to share this.

I was thinking of doing something around August 11 and 12. I wasn’t sure what it was going to be. I fell into the same trap of wanting to show photos of protestors, signs, and all that. Then I started thinking, why would I want to do the same thing, show photos of anger? Yeah, we resisted, we did all that, but still, photos of anger? Why do I want to do that?

Then I saw this photo, and I kept looking at it.

I decided I don’t want to show photos of protestors, I don’t want to show photos of activists. Not that they’re not relevant — they’re very, very relevant, and very important to the movement. But, I want to put a human face to Charlottesville. If I am going to try to reclaim the narrative of Charlottesville, I don’t want to show photos of the same activists marching with signs. People have seen those photos.

Instead, let’s talk about us. Let’s talk about the people, the regular, average, Charlottesville people, what they experienced on that day. Let’s talk about that. Or let them talk about that. And that is how this project came to be.

Aug. 13, 2017, approximately 6 p.m.

On Aug. 13, 2017, the day after the Unite the Right rally, a five-year-old girl sat atop her father’s shoulders during a vigil that took place on the site of the car attack on Fourth Street SE. Courtesy Ézé Amos

This photo was a no-brainer. A dad with his daughter on his neck in the middle of thousands of people, on Fourth Street, at the vigil? And she was just there, like, “What is going on here? What are these people doing?” There was no way I would just let that go.

The craziest part of this project? I had to find these people. I had to track them down, and then interview them. I interviewed the dad for “The Story of Us.” His daughter, she was five then, so she’s 10 now.

Aug. 13, 2017

A photograph taken from the ground level of a line of people sitting close together on a curb, with more people standing next to and behind them. The focus of the photo is a man in a short-sleeved button-down shirt, shorts, and jelly sandals sitting on the curb, holding his cell phone. The corners of his mouth are turned down and his brow is furrowed. On the street in front of him, there are messages written in chalk. Down the street, stickers spelling out “HATE” have been added underneath the “STOP” of a street sign.
During the Aug. 13, 2017 vigil, people sit on the sidewalk of Fourth Street SE, where dozens of people were hurt physically and emotionally, and where Heather Heyer died, in the car attack. Dee Dee, the focus of this photo, brought his family to the vigil after learning he played an unexpected part in the whole thing. Courtesy Ézé Amos

This is the same vigil. His name is Dee Dee, and he’s a cook at The Haven.

I thought his face said it all. But when I asked him— I didn’t expect anything like that. When we talked, he just went for it. He started, “I saw everything.” They [the white supremacists] had rented his Air BnB?! He saw everything.

Of course I had to keep quiet [during the interview], but I was thinking, imagine, how many of these stories I’ve taken in. Think about the effect of that when you’re listening to them on the Mall.

Aug. 13, 2017, at 7:37 p.m.

At the center of the photo is a police officer wearing a dark uniform and a hat. He is surrounded by people, some of them with large cameras, and all of their faces are blurred.
Former assistant chief of the Charlottesville Police Department, Jim Mooney, attends the vigil on Aug. 13, 2017, when he was still a sergeant. He’s looking up at Fourth Street SE, to the massive crowd that gathered at the site of the car attack. The black stripe across the center of his badge is a symbol of mourning for the two Virginia State Police officers who died in a helicopter crash during the Unite the Right rally the previous day. Courtesy of Ézé Amos

I took a ton of photos of officers that weekend, but there was something about him looking into a crowd of thousands of people.

For this photo, I was photographing from right in the crowd on Fourth Street during the vigil. I was photographing all those people, and I looked down at Water Street, and he stood out, the head of a cop standing there looking into the crowd. He was the only cop there.

When I interviewed him, he told me about his experience and he said he was conflicted. He was wearing two hearts. He grew up in Charlottesville, so as a resident of Charlottesville, this had just happened to his community. He has his family here. And then he’s also a police officer, and the idea that they had to guard and protect the idiots that came to town, that’s the instruction that they were given.

So, there’s a lot of hate and stuff that was thrown at him, and as he was telling me this, he was crying. This man was tearing up saying his truths, telling me his story, and I felt for him at a point. Wow, I felt for him. This project is not about what side you take. It’s about us as a community. What was he experiencing?

The first time I showed someone this, they were like, “ew, cop, ugh.” I get it, but let’s stop for a second to think. This guy’s also a human being. Something happened to him on that day. What’s his story? Wouldn’t you want to hear that? He is part of the community. I wanted to hear his story as well.

There was something about him looking into this crowd, a crowd of thousands of people. [In our interview,] he described what he was looking at. He said he was looking at Charlottesville, and he said, even though he couldn’t express it, he was proud of what he was seeing, that this community is doing their thing.

The crowd that day, it was huge. It was more than huge.

Dec. 11, 2018, 1:48 p.m.

The photo shows nine people gathered together outside of a brick building. In the center of the photo is a woman in a wheelchair. The woman leans her head on the chest of a woman standing next to her. Everyone else in the photo gathers around the woman at the center, their arms around her and one another, all looking at the camera directly.
Star Peterson (center, in pink) was seriously injured when James Alex Fields drove his car into a crowd of counter protestors on Aug. 12, 2017. The impact crushed Peterson’s pelvis, and she has had many surgeries since. Courtesy of Ézé Amos

I took this right after the [guilty] verdict in the James Alex Fields murder trial, right outside the courthouse. This was right before Heather Heyer’s mom, Susan Bro, walked up to the podium to do a press thing.

It took me a while to land on just one photo from that day. I could have gone with a Susan Bro photo, but this was the best photo, and I think I made the right choice. Because from hearing Star [Peterson, pictured center] tell her story — not to diminish other people’s stories, because they all have really, really difficult stories to tell — I felt it was important to hear her voice. [Peterson was seriously injured when James Alex Fields drove his car into a crowd of counter protestors on August 12, 2017: The impact crushed her pelvis, and she has had many surgeries since.]

I didn’t even ask them to pose — they just did that. There are a lot of other photos that I could have used, but there’s something about this photo, how it shows “I’m f – – – – – g tired” and “we’re here for you.” There’s just so much going on in there. I love how she’s flanked by all these people who are like, “we’ve got you.”

I keep saying that these are not photos of violence. They’re not photos of violence when you look at them, but there’s so much violence that has happened, and that they’re carrying. If you look within, oh God, there’s a ton of violence in there.

“The Story of Us” is on display on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall through late September. Can’t make it to town? See the photographs, and hear the recordings on the project website.

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I'm Charlottesville Tomorrow's neighborhoods reporter. I’ve never met a stranger and love to listen, so, get in touch with me here. If you’re not already subscribed to our free newsletter, you can do that here, and we’ll let you know when there’s a fresh story for you to read. I’m looking forward to getting to know more of you.