CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Protesters decrying hatred and racism converged across the country on Sunday, saying they felt compelled to counteract the white nationalist rally that spiraled into deadly violence in Virginia.

In Charlottesville, Kim Ganczak waved her sign amid a swirl of protesters, officers with riot shields, and national media.

“Free hugs,” it read.

“Because you can never fight violence with violence and win,” she said Sunday.

VIDEO: Ryan Dunn speaks to Andrew Evans in Charlottesville

One day earlier, a white-nationalist rally in this city turned deadly when a motorist, identified by police as James A. Fields, Jr., 20, of Maumee, drove into a crowd of people counter-protesting their event.

One woman was killed and several people were injured.

Hundreds gathered Sunday at the downtown plaza to calmly make clear they do not support this in their city. In interviews, they expressed exasperation that Charlottesville was picked for such efforts.

“It’s disheartening. It’s scary. But it’s nice to know that it’s not us that’s doing it. These people aren’t from here,” said Ms. Ganczak, 26, of Charlottesville.

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At one point, an organizer for the white-nationalist rally tried addressing the Sunday crowd.

He was jeered, followed by chants of, “We are unstoppable. Another world is possible.”

He then left the area.

Resident Andrew Evans, like others, called Charlottesville an inclusive and open-minded city.

He said those who came to protest Saturday were upset over the future of the city’s Robert E. Lee statue. Residents do not want to ignore history, but are respectful of diversity, said Mr. Evans, 29.

“They don’t want to let go of something that locally we’re happy to let go of,” he said.

The crash was a heartbreaking and disgusting act, said resident Penny White.

“This town has a lot of history, and it’s trying to deal with a lot of that history. We didn’t ask these people to come here. We certainly didn’t ask them to kill anybody or hurt anybody,” she said.

There is no excuse for what happened, Ms. White said.

Chanando Brown, 23, has lived his whole life in Charlottesville. He said he’s not an activist, but such hateful outside messages made him attend Saturday and Sunday gatherings.

“It’s like a spit in your face. You want to come out and protest against stuff like that. That stuff doesn’t belong here,” he said.

Gatherings were held throughout the nation and included candlelight vigils in several cities.

In Seattle, police made arrests and confiscated weapons as supporters of President Trump and counter-protesters converged downtown.

Some focused on showing support for the people whom white supremacists condemn.

Other demonstrations were pushing for the removal of Confederate monuments, the issue that initially prompted white nationalists to gather in anger over the weekend in Charlottesville.

Still other gatherings aimed to denounce fascism and a presidential administration that organizers feel has let white supremacists feel empowered.

“People need to wake up, recognize that, and resist it as fearlessly as it needs to be done,” said Carl Dix, a leader of the Refuse Fascism group organizing demonstrations in New York, San Francisco, and other cities. “This can’t be allowed to fester and to grow because we’ve seen what happened in the past when that was allowed.”

“It has to be confronted,” said Mr. Dix, a New Yorker who spoke by phone from Charlottesville Sunday.

In Seattle, a rally previously planned for Sunday by the conservative pro-Trump group known as Patriot Prayer drew hundreds of counter-protesters.

A barricade separated the two groups. At one intersection, police ordered crowds to disperse.

The Seattle Times reported that officers used pepper spray on some marchers. It wasn’t clear how many people had been arrested.

In Denver, several hundred demonstrators gathered beneath a statue of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in City Park and marched about two miles to the state Capitol.

In Fort Collins, Colo., marchers chanted “Everyone is welcome here. No hate, no fear.” One demonstrator’s sign read, “Make racists ashamed again.”

In New York, protesters marched from several locations in Manhattan to Trump Tower, demanding the President denounce white nationalist groups involved in the violent confrontations in Charlottesville.

“Call out evil,” one sign read.

Charlottesville descended into violence Saturday after neo-Nazis, skinheads, Ku Klux Klan members and other white nationalists gathered to “take America back” and oppose plans to remove a Confederate statue in the Virginia college town, and hundreds of other people came to protest the rally.

The groups clashed in street brawls, with hundreds of people throwing punches, hurling water bottles and beating each other with sticks and shields.

Eventually, a car rammed into a peaceful crowd of anti-white-nationalist protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.

A Virginia State Police helicopter deployed in a large-scale response to the violence then crashed into the woods outside of town. Both troopers on board died.

A crowd gathered on the street where the crash happened for a vigil Sunday evening.

They sang “Amazing Grace” and prayed around piles of flowers that mark the spot where Ms. Heyer was killed.

Prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer, who attended the rally, denied all responsibility for the violence. He blamed the counter-protesters and police.

Mr. Trump condemned what he called an “egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides,” a statement that Democrats and some of the President’s fellow Republicans saw as equivocating about who was to blame.

The White House later added that the condemnation “includes white Supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi and all extremist groups.”

Some of the white nationalists at Saturday’s rally cited Mr. Trump’s victory, after a campaign of racially charged rhetoric, as validation for their beliefs.

Some of the people protesting Sunday also point to the President and his campaign, saying they gave license to racist hatred that built into what happened in Charlottesville.

“For those who questioned whether ‘oh, don’t call it fascism’ ... this should resolve those issues,” Reiko Redmonde, an organizer of a Refuse Fascism protest planned in San Francisco, said by phone. “People need to get out in the streets to protest, in a determined way.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Contact Ryan Dunn at rdunn@theblade.com, 419-724-6095 or on Twitter @rdunnblade.

First Published August 13, 2017, 10:30 p.m.