Was the Women’s March the Largest Mass Protest in American History?
I don’t remember any other March with such international participation. It was a unique feeling to be part of that day. Knowing that people, not just women, were gathered all over the globe at the same time for the same reason.
The 2017 Women’s March was a historic event. Social media alone gave many of us the notion that something happened on an incredibly grand scale. But measuring just how “grand” is an inexact science. Women’s Marches were held around the world in protest of President Donald Trump on the day following his inauguration. Subsequently, lots of folks have tried to find good ways of counting the crowds. Photographs and videos of the crowds at some of the largest marches are truly awe-inspiring. And the media has gotten stirred up attempting to quantify just how big this march really was.
Think about it. The image above is taken of some of the crowds in Los Angeles. The caption Getty Images associates with the image includes the estimate “Hundreds of thousands of protesters….” But, was it 200,000? Or was it more like 900,000? Do you think you could eyeball it and make an educated guess? We’d bet you’d be off by more than you think. Previous research has found, for instance, that march participants and organizers are not always the best source of information for how large a protest was. If you’re there and you’re asked how many people were there, you’re much more likely to exaggerate the number of people who were actually there with you. And that fact has spawned wildly variable estimates for marches around the United States and beyond.
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