DAYTON, Ohio — City buses flashed “United Against Hate” on their electronic signboards. Coffee shops and record stores chalked anti-KKK messages on their sidewalk sandwich boards. Banners denouncing hate hung from buildings.

Saturday was supposed to be the day when a group affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan would descend upon Dayton, Ohio, in a show of strength. But in the end, the most palpable display of power was a city united in repelling the Klan’s hateful views.

Groups that typically have little to do with one another found common cause in drowning out the nine white supremacists who showed up in front of the Montgomery County courthouse and stood behind temporary fences and a phalanx of police officers. Among the counterprotesters, about a football field’s length away, were black-masked Antifa members, church groups, New Black Panthers, university students and retirees all chanting, drumming and singing together.