A peaceful candlelight vigil in Lewisburg, West Virginia, on Sunday stood in stark contrast to the violence displayed 24 hours earlier in Charlottesville, Virginia, less than 150 miles away across the state line.

Hundreds of white nationalists and supremacists, including neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members, descended Saturday on the bucolic college town of Charlottesville for a “Unite the Right” rally. The white nationalists were met with fervent counter protestors, leading to violent clashes. 

Heather Heyer, a Charlottesville paralegal and counter protestor, died after police say a driver intentionally plowed his car into a crowd of protestors near the rally, injuring 19 others. The driver, James Alex Fields Jr., from Ohio, has been charged with second-degree murder. 

Jarred by the violence and white nationalist presence, communities like Lewisburg rallied across the country this weekend to express their solidarity with the counter protestors, condemnation of the Unite the Right marchers and grief for the victims.

Framed against a backdrop of the American flag and a rainbow flag, several speakers, including Lewisburg Mayor John Manchester, addressed the crowd of nearly 100 people.

“Behind any anger is fear,” Episcopal priest Betsy Walker told the Lewisburg gathering. “We’re seeing a lot of people that are very fearful. People aren’t feeling like they’re being heard or respected.”

She said she is trying not to be fearful in the face of “policies coming out of Washington” that could affect her life adversely.

“We need to say, ‘I am not going to give in to fear; I am not going to give in to hate-mongering.”

In Newburyport, Massachusetts, news of the violence brought more people than usual to a regular Sunday demonstration for peace.

Shawn Flaherty, a member of the Newburyport Civil Rights Commission, joined the group and held a sign Sunday for the first time. 

“I just never made my way over here before, but because of what happened yesterday, I needed to be here,” he said.

In Terre Haute, Indiana, at least 150 people rallied Sunday night in a show of solidarity with another college town more than 600 miles away.

Terre Haute holds vigil for Charlottesville following deadly weekend

In Meadville, Pennsylvania, city officials and law enforcement worked with local activists overnight to issue a last minute city permit for a Sunday march. Around 120 area residents carried signs including “White silence endorses violence” and “White supremacy has NO place in Meadville.”

“The thing for us tonight is to show we are here and we will not allow racism in our community,” Justin Adkins, a member of Showing Up for Racial Justice Crawford County, said at the Meadville march. “That we will call out racism when we see it, we will call in other people to the conversation, and we will call people in to the work of ending racism and white supremacy in our community.” 

Rev. Mark Reisinger, pastor of Beaver Memorial United Methodist Church addressed a crowd of more than 100 people in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.

“As I said this morning in our worship service, when the voice of hate speaks loudly, the voices of love cannot be silent,” Reisinger said.

Tina Alvey of the Beckley, West Virginia, Register-Herald, Richard K. Lodge of Newburyport, Massachusetts, Daily News and Dave Taylor of the Terre Haute, Indiana, Tribune-Star contributed to this story.