Just got in a few hours ago, and I'm exhausted from all the walking and the long bus rides up and down. I've commented at a few diaries about my experience, so I'm going to start with a repeat of my comment on why I think the lower numbers being reported are not accurate. Then I'll finish up with photos and other remarks as I figure out how to get them up here.
Here goes...
UPDATE: Here's the link to my Photobucket album. I'm so exhausted, I can't learn how to embed pics right now. But people can see 'em.
ONWT 10.2.10 March photos by dkistner
Why the numbers seemed smaller than the 300,000 to 500,000 I think were actually there
For one, a lot of groups got there late. One example: there was construction on the route from NYC (I learned from a group from the Maimonides Medical Center union) that narrowed the lanes from three to one. They didn't arrive until 3 p.m., then had to turn around and leave ten minutes after they got to the reflecting pool because of the contracted "leave" time. That made me feel a little better. Our bus from Georgia did not arrive until closer to 1 p.m., and by the time we got parked and instructed and walked to the RFK Stadium Armory station to pick up the Metro, it was pushing 2:00.
Once off the Metro, huge crowds were trying to get to the rally, and few people knew where the rally was actually being held. Closer to the Washington Monument, people were strung out all over the place and wandering back and forth. I overheard several people asking where they were supposed to line up to march. And, of course, the first thing anyone saw was the very loud, very visible 9/11 Truthers and Socialist Workers Party-type groups who were making it hard for people to push on through.
I made it to the Washington Monument side of the reflecting pool around 2:00. Once at the reflecting pool, and I don't know if this is typical, but they had barrier fences making little cattle-type corrals placed all along the sides, and that prevented/discouraged people from getting very close or packing in. It was more expedient to move down the walkway under the trees if you were looking for other people, wanted to stay cool, or were hunting for a place where you could actually see anything.
There were only two large screens [UPDATE: On the left side of the pool where I was]; there should have been at least four screens for the size of the crowd. Many could only hear the loudspeakers. I'm sure a lot of people just left to go off somewhere else when it became clear they couldn't see the speakers. (And when you COULD see the speakers, their voices were totally out of sync with the loudspeakers.)
And did the satellite photo capture all this?
Because our bus captain had warned us to be back to the bus not later than 4:30 to leave by 5:00 (and given the trouble I'd had getting to the rally) I turned around and left about 3:15 to be sure I had time to get back. I missed meeting DiegoUK, War on Error, One Pissed Off Liberal, Kitsap River, et al., and that was really disappointing.
When I got to the Smithsonian Station to take the Metro back to RFK Stadium, a HUGE long line of people stacked four or five deep was stalled trying to get in. One of the volunteer marshals with ONWT said the train was stuck in the station and they were turning people away from Smithsonian and telling them to go to "the next station." Wherever the hell that was! I and many others wound up walking to the Capital, trying to find the next Metro station. This was before the rally was even supposed to officially conclude at 4:00.
The blue and orange Metro lines were packed like sardines. They kept having to stop the trains between stations, I guess to deal with all the people and give each train time to get its passengers on and off safely. There were so many people, often the doors wouldn't close. They had a bunch of cops and metro staff frantically trying to get all the people moved, and the look on some of their faces told me they were trying not to panic. I think they might have been afraid of what would happen if people started pushing and shoving and getting mad at each other...which didn't happen, thank heaven. I certainly would have been afraid of that! It was a very large number of exhausted, frustrated people--many of whom, like me, hadn't eaten since early morning and were scared to death they were going to miss their bus and be stranded in D.C. with no money. It took me almost four hours to get from the rally back to my bus...and I left early! I can only imagine how it was for the people who stayed until 4:00 or later.
I think the 300,000 to 500,000 figure is probably accurate. That was the number one of the ONWT workers (wearing the orange vests) said had made it. Maybe there were only 200,000 people visible near the Lincoln Memorial or reflecting pool at any given time, but there were far, far more people there for the rally than that.
And what about the "march"?
Another thing I think led to a scattering of people that made it hard to determine how many people came is this: I think a lot of people were disappointed or confused that this wasn't actually a MARCH. I was expecting a few speeches leading up to a MARCH. We did not march. A LOT of people were milling around, walking back and forth along the shady paths between the various memorials. Some had figured out there wasn't going to be a physical march, and some were still wondering where they were supposed to go line up for the march (no doubt hoping to get lined up ahead of the rest of the crowds so they could also get out earlier!). In short: There were lots of people with lots of pent-up energy wanting to march, not sit on the wet ground listening to loudspeakers.
If we had been put on the streets marching, with all the diversity of the groups and the energy of We the People, the huge turnout, I think, would have been undeniable.
I want to emphasize that I'm not being critical of the organizers of ONWT. Their volunteers were prevalent, easily identified, helpful and, CRITICALLY, cheerful. They just should not have called it a march if it wasn't a march.
My only other complaint is that there were not nearly enough trash receptables (which is probably the city's failure, not ONWT's). I was trying to pick up trash but finally gave up because the one little bag I had was already full and the trashcans were overflowing and the trash spreading out anywhere from a few to six or more feet all around. The "extreme left" groups (you know, the ones Fox News focused on and used to dismiss the enter event as "communist") left the most trash, at least from what I saw: All those newspapers and flyers foisted off on people that took them so they could make some progress down the path to the rally and then promptly threw them away.
What happened to the pure "Jobs, Education, Justice" theme? When One Nation Working Together puts together another event like this, I do think they should insist that all participants stick to the overarching theme and not confuse the situation (and litter the Mall) with tons of dense ideological tracts.
In summary, and then on to my pictures:
I don't know how many bodies the Lincoln Memorial space can technically hold, but it couldn't have held all the people that were actually in D.C. for this event. It was energetic chaos, but I was proud to be one of the ones who was there to be counted.
Oh, shoot, my camera battery is dead. I have to charge it before I can get the pictures off my camera. Later...