Editor, Gazette-Journal:

The 1st District is no place for hate. The past week has seen pipe bombs sent to Democratic critics of the President, a shooter who tried to kill worshippers at a black church and then gunned down two black citizens at a grocery store, and the largest mass killing of Jews in our nation’s history.

Now, in the northern part of the district, neo-Nazis are defacing Vangie Williams’s face on her campaign signs because she is black and daring to run for Congress. We, as a community, must renounce these purveyors of bigotry and hatred and speak with one voice in repudiating their actions. Rob Wittman, our elected Representative, must vocally and pointedly condemn those supporters who would seek to divide us. We can, and must, be better than this.

Dianne Carter de Mayo

Hayes, Va. ...