Marchers at a Love Trumps Hate rally in Seattle earlier this year.
Marchers at a "Love Trumps Hate" rally in Seattle earlier this year. Ramon Dompor

Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal, has been identified as the victim who was mowed down by a car and killed while she demonstrated against neo-Nazis on Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia.


Suspect James Fields Jr., 20, has been arrested and charged with second degree murder.

Huffington Post reporter Andy Campbell interviewed Heyer's mother, Susan Bro, this morning. Bro described her daughter like this:

“She always had a very strong sense of right and wrong, she always, even as a child, was very caught up in what she believed to be fair,” Bro said. “Somehow I almost feel that this is what she was born to be, is a focal point for change. I’m proud that what she was doing was peaceful, she wasn’t there fighting with people.”

Bro added that she didn't want her daughter's death "to be a focus for more hatred, I want her death to be a rallying cry for justice and equality and fairness and compassion."

The New York Times interviewed Heyer's supervisor, who described her as a "strong woman" who stood up against "any type of discrimination." A childhood friend said that Heyer once stood up for people being bullied on the school bus.

Friends of Heyer have started a GoFundMe for her family. You can donate here.