Over 100,000 showed up in Washington D.C.; though initially when I got there mid-morning, it seemed sparse (the metro was fairly crowded). Once the organized busses started pulling in though, it really became apparent just how many were showing up. As noted, the organizers put in a permit application for around 10-15K. But we got the kind of big numbers needed to get the attention of many different audiences given the circumstances (and to also show to the rest of the world that many American’s are not happy and will assemble).
The various organizations did a great job overall in terms of the logistics which made everything run smoothly and without incident (there also didn’t seem to be any significant counter protestor presence). The only major negative as a result of underestimating the size was that the stage and PA system for the guest speakers, was inadequately small (couldn’t see and hear unless you were up close).
It should be noted that many black American’s chose to sit this out for good reason. They’ve been heavily targeted and have always gotten the poor receiving end when showing up in large numbers for past protests (like the BLM protests). The general jist from this demographic was to let one of the largest ethnic demographics show up for this Hands Off event because this regime would not take as much of an aggressive posturing if a smaller presence of black people showed up (a point of view I can understand).
I will say it has been quite an adrenalin rush (along with a lack of sleep) which will be perfect for the flight back west. I went against the recommendation of not traveling if flight time exceeded 6 hours (due to a medical condition I need to take care of) because I felt this was very important. I mitigated part of it by flying business class with lie-flat seating. I guess the side bonus was being able to see the sakura in bloom along the Tidal Basin (but I didn’t plan for an extended stay to visit).
The importance of having a large protestor turnout cannot be understated. Many people who made this trip out to D.C. were similarly uncertain of just how many would show up here and back in their home states. I personally felt the gravity of what has been happening since January 20th required a lot more people “out on the streets” (the first two 50501 protests were ok but the turnouts weren’t matching the insanity that was happening on a daily basis).
For this first major mobilization, the numbers and the visuals gave many people that huge boost today (including those who could not attend even their local ones). Many will now find that personal courage to attend a future one (where these numbers can grow organically). And that makes it more challenging for this regime to be able to wield the law enforcement/military angle as easily (big difference if you need to deal with just a couple of hundred protestors versus hundreds of thousands or millions).
