The LA Times reports that 500,000 people filled the streets of downtown Los Angeles today to protest the passage of proposed immigration reform bill HR 4437:
The crowd, estimated by police at more than 500,000, represented one of the largest protest marches in Los Angeles history, surpassing Vietnam War demonstrations and the 70,000 who rallied downtown against Proposition 187, a 1994 state initiative that denied public benefits to undocumented migrants.
That 500,000 is a POLICE estimate, remember.
Spirited crowds representing labor, religious groups, civil-rights advocates and ordinary immigrants stretched over 26 blocks of downtown Los Angeles from Adams Blvd. along Spring Street and Broadway to City Hall, tooting kazoos, waving American flags and chanting "Si se puede!" (Yes we can!).
"There has never been this kind of mobilization in the immigrant community ever," said Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. "They have kicked the sleeping giant. It's the beginning of a massive immigrant civil rights struggle."
Many of the marchers were immigrants themselves -- both legal and illegal -- from Mexico and Central America. Some had just crossed the border, while others had been here for decades. There were construction workers and business owners; families with young children and people in wheelchairs.
So while I was out planting in my garden, running to OSH for potting soil, a lot of other people were out changing the world.
Amazing. Inspiring. Humbling.
Si se puede!, indeed!
UPDATE: See this excellent diary by susie dow, who was on the ground at the march.
Cross-posted at My Left Wing