By 11:45 a.m., when I returned downtown, a couple hundred people had massed on Main Street in front of the Pinhook, a hip LGBT-friendly bar. Some of them were the same people who had taken part in Monday’s protest; many more had just shown up because they were angry and worried about the Klan coming to town.

There were banners of the homemade, Sharpie-and-posterboard variety, more elaborate fabric ones, and a flag of the Industrial Workers of the World, the union most associated with Eugene Debs and the early 20th century labor movement. There were new rumors—the Klan members were driving in and had been spotted a few miles away, headed for downtown. A man with a rifle slung over his shoulder jumped up on a car. Saying he’d been with Redneck Revolt, a left-wing militia, in Charlottesville the weekend before, he exhorted the crowd, saying that if police (who were little in evidence) were unwilling to block the Klan, the people needed to do so:

But as it turned out, no Klan showed up—at least no recognizable hooded figures, and no one claiming to be a Klansman. (There was a tense encounter between the crowd and two men offering racist rhetoric, though it was eventually defused.) So with hundreds of Durhamites out on the street, a gathering convened to block the Klan threw an impromptu block party instead.

First, however, there was marching. As it became apparent that no Klan members were arriving imminently, the group decided to take advantage of having blocked traffic and to have a parade, marching around the block. People rotated through chants: “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA,” “Cops and the Klan go hand in hand,” and, as they passed the jail, “We see you, we love you.” (A roar of appreciation came from the jail.)

David A. Graham / The Atlantic

Eventually, the procession arrived in front of the old Durham County Courthouse, where a statue commemorating Confederate veterans was ceremoniously erected in 1924 and unceremoniously toppled Monday.

Not long after that came the tensest moment I witnessed. Two white men were on the lawn in front of the courthouse. I didn’t see how the confrontation started, but one of the men, who declined to give his name, said he was just waiting for a ride and hadn’t realized the protest was about to happen. He said a woman called him to unity (plausible) and then gave a black-power salute (also plausible).

“I said that ain’t no unity sign,” he said. “I decided to be smart-ass, for the first time in life,” and gave a Nazi salute. He said he meant it ironically, saying it was an equally divisive gesture to a black-power salute.

Predictably, this did not go over well with a crowd of hot and hyped up anti-white-supremacy protestors. Angry words were exchanged. The man insisted he wasn’t a racist: “I grew up in Braggtown,” a historically black Durham neighborhood. His friend, wearing a Peterbilt cap, yelled, “Allah owned goddamn slaves!” He also suggested a compromise solution: “Let’s tear down all the statues. Let’s tear down Martin Luther King and all of that shit. Let’s get rid of it all.”