Charlottesville aftermath: Protests flare up again across U.S.

Corrections and clarifications: An earlier version contained an incorrect first name for Cody Hart.

Protesters took to the streets of America again Monday in the wake of Saturday's demonstrations and violent actions by white nationalists in Charlottesville, Va., over the planned removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in the city. A 32-year-old woman died after authorities say a 20-year-old Ohio man rammed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters in Charlottesville.

At Trump Tower, where the president was expected at his New York City home, protesters and heavy security gathered to greet the president as he returned for the first time since his inauguration in January.

More than 1,000 demonstrators were in pens police erected across the street from Trump Tower by early Monday evening, hours before his expected arrival.

An inflatable caricature of Trump rose above pedestrians on a nearby block. On Twitter, a photo surfaced of protesters who made it past security pressing signs against a window in the skyscraper.

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Police stationed sand-filled sanitation trucks as barriers around the tower and layers of metal police barricades around the main entrance.

Amid shouts of "New York hates you" and "Black Lives Matter," project manager Cody Hart held up a sign that read "Dump Trump" as he stood Monday night with hundreds of other protesters about a block from Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.

"I am here to protest the person that is supposedly our president," said Hart, 42, of Manhattan, as the chants turned into a simple one-word expletive beginning with the letter "a."

Hart said the president's response to the weekend violence — given earlier in a speech at the White House — was "despicable."

"It is not even human ... his lack of response," Hart said.

In his remarks, Trump condemned white supremacists. 

"Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans," Trump said.

New York University sophomore Marc Licciardi said he was at Monday night's protest outside Trump Tower because he blames the president for spreading rhetoric that he believes encourages the sort of violence that happened in Virginia.

"He has implied in the past that it's OK to use violence against peaceful protesters," said Licciardi, 20, who is studying politics and journalism.

The student said Trump has made incendiary comments encouraging violence by law enforcement while in office and on the campaign trail.

"I'm out here because I'm just outraged," he said.

Henry Lancaster, a tech industry worker who lives in Brooklyn, held up a sign that read, "I'm moving to Europe" as the crowd of hundreds outside Trump Tower swelled as hours passed.

When asked what brought him to Monday's protest, the 30-year-old said, "There's a lot of reasons — socialized medicine being one, education, jobs, lack of a workers' movement in this country. Pick one."

Lancaster responded to a question about his sign with a chuckle and, "Why not?"

In Washington, Metro D.C. Police said demonstrators were marching from Lafayette Park across from the White House up Pennsylvania Avenue toward Trump International Hotel and the U.S. Capitol.

In Durham, N.C., protesters met near a Confederate monument downtown, then toppled the statue, according to WNCN-TV. 

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper called the deadly violence in Charlottesville "unacceptable" via Twitter Monday night and said "there is a better way to remove these monuments."

For nearly two hours earlier Monday, protesters in Nashville urged Tennessee's leaders to finally take action and remove a bust of Confederate soldier and early leader of the Ku Klux Klan Nathan Bedford Forrest from the state Capitol in Nashville. 

They sang songs such as This Little Light of Mine and voiced their frustrations in chants­ — “White silence is violence,” “Which side are you on?” and “Tear it down.”

Ultimately, they made their way from the Forrest bust between the House and Senate chambers to Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam's office, demanding an answer from him on the issue.

“My position on this issue has not changed — I do not believe Nathan Bedford Forrest should be one of the individuals we honor at the Capitol," Haslam said in a statement. "The General Assembly has established a process for addressing these matters and I strongly encourage the Capitol Commission and the Historical Commission to act.”

The bust of Forrest has become a controversial issue in Tennessee. Removing it would take a two-thirds vote from the Tennessee Historical Commission, thanks to a law state lawmakers approved in 2016.

After the weekend's events, Moral Movement Tennessee turned its attention to the Forrest bust as scrutiny has intensified across the nation on what to do with symbols of the Confederacy that dot town squares and public buildings across the South. 

Justin Jones, the organizer of the protest at the Capitol, said they wanted to “send a message to our white brothers and sisters that white supremacy hurts you, too.”

At one point, more than 80 people took part in demanding the removal of the Forrest bust.

Joy Bronson, who was among the protesters and grew up in predominantly white neighborhoods, said that since the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012, racism has held an enormous space in her life.

Martin was an unarmed black teen shot by a neighborhood watch officer in a gated community in Florida.

“When issues like this arise, and they don't really arise because they are really always here, my grief comes from being in these predominantly white spaces where people constantly say they are shocked over what has happened,” she said. “My question is always, ‘Are you not listening when I’m speaking? Are you not listening when other people of color are speaking?’ ”

In Minneapolis, hundreds marched the streets in Minneapolis' Cedar-Riverside neighborhood and a Nazi was burned in effigy.

The march started at 5 p.m. outside the Minnesota GOP headquarters and protesters eventually headed downtown, blocking some roads and light rail tracks as they went, police said.

In Naples, Fla., more than 150 people attended an anti-hate vigil Monday night at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Greater Naples in response to the violence over the weekend in Virginia.

"We are appalled by the display of hate and bigotry in Charlottesville," said Jeffrey Feld, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Collier County. "We are horrified and sickened by the messages that were spewed. But we must stand together as people who believe in the good of mankind."

Late Monday afternoon, Texas A&M University abruptly canceled a planned white supremacist rally on its campus next month, amid bipartisan pressure from state lawmakers who said hatred should be rejected in all forms — despite First Amendment protections.

An announcement on the House floor by Republican Rep. John Raney said A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp had opted to scuttle the event set for Sept. 11 because of concerns police would be stretched thin providing security. The A&M System confirmed the cancellation and was working on a statement.

A former A&M student named Preston Wiginton had been organizing a “white lives matter” rally in College Station, Texas, saying he was inspired by Saturday’s “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, when a vehicle plowed into a group of counterprotesters, killing at least one and injuring 19.

Wiginton said he’d invited prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer to address the Texas rally. Spencer spoke at an A&M event in December, when he was met by hundreds of protesters, many of whom gathered at Kyle Field football stadium to hear music and speeches highlighting diversity and unity to counter Spencer’s appearance.

Word of the cancellation came hours after Dallas Democratic Rep. Helen Giddings gave a House floor speech while nearly all of the chamber’s 150 members stood beside her. She urged university administrators to “unequivocally denounce and fight against this violent group” adding “all of us in the state of Texas want to say with one voice, Texas will not stand for hate.”

On Monday, James Alex Fields Jr. of Ohio was denied bail in Virginia Monday, making his court appearance via video from jail.

The hearing for Fields is set for Aug. 25. He has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of Heather Heyer of Charlottesville and several other counts.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, appearing on Good Morning America Monday morning, said the attack, "does meet the definition of domestic terrorism in our statute." 

"You can be sure we will charge and advance the investigation towards the most serious charges that can be brought because this is unequivocally an unacceptable, evil attack," Sessions told ABC News. "Terrorism investigators from the FBI are working on the case as well as civil rights division FBI agents."

Contributing: Alexi C. Cardona, Naples (Fla.) Daily News, KARE-TV, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn., Melanie Eversley, USA TODAY, Adam Tamburin, Dave Boucher and Joel Ebert, The Tennessean, and The Associated Press.