'Make My Child's Death Worthwhile': Heather Heyer's Mom Delivers Defiant Eulogy

By Katherine Krueger, Splinter

16 August 17

t a memorial service in Charlottesville on Wednesday held to honor the late Heather Heyer—who was killed after white supremacist James Alex Fields, Jr. allegedly hit her with a car on Saturday—Heyer’s mother offered a defiant, moving call to continue her daughter’s work.

“They tried to kill my child to shut her up,” Susan Bro said. “Well guess what, you just magnified her.”

She went on to urge attendees to find that “small spark of accountability” within themselves to speak up in the face of injustice.

“We are going to have our differences, we’re going to be angry with each other,” Bro said. “But let’s channel that anger not into hate, not into violence, not into fear. Let’s channel that difference, that anger into righteous action.”

“That’s how you’re going to make my child’s death worthwhile,” she continued, her voice unwavering. “I’d rather have my child, but by God, if I have to give her up, we’re going to make it count.”

Ahead of the public memorial service, President Trump, who on Tuesday equated the groups Heyer joined for the protest with the white supremacists marching to save a Confederate-era statue, tweeted before the event to call her “beautiful and incredible.”