The final national crowd estimate is that somewhere between 3.6 million and 4.5 million people marched across the country in Women’s March On Washington.
According to UConn Professor Jeremy Pressman’s Google document of crowd estimates the low-end estimate is 3.66 million marchers. The high-end estimate is 4.57 million. Whether it is the low or high estimate that is accurate the Women’s March On Washington shattered the previous record for the largest one-day protest in the United States.
Consider that the 1963 Civil Rights March On Washington had 250,000 attendees and that the previous record holder was believed to one of either the anti-nuclear protest in Central Park in 1982, the Million Man March in 1995, or the LGBT March for Equal Rights in 1993. Each of these protests had a high-end estimate of 1 million or so.
The Women’s March low-end estimate is more than three and a half times bigger than anything that has ever been done before in the United States of America.
The lesson from the Women’s March from an organizational perspective is that popular movements don’t originate from the top down, which is why Donald Trump’s claim that he is leading a movement goes against all study and examination of previous popular movements.
The biggest organic movements in US history come from ordinary Americans joining together.
Change comes from the bottom and spreads upwards. What the nation witnessed wasn’t a one-time reaction to an unpopular president taking office. Millions of Americans stood up to defend equal rights. It is a real movement, and those millions of marchers are not going to go away and be silenced.
