This is cross posted to my blog.
Three experienced crowd-estimators have shared their thoughts with me about how many people were at the rally at the U.S. Capital today.
DC-based gay reporter Bob Roehr said:
At any one point in time there probably were tens of thousands marching. Some people didn't march but found their own way to the Capitol. If one arrived at the assembly point, marched, and stayed to the end of the rally it was about 7 hours. Few people did that, there was a lot of coming and going. I saw some highly costumed folks headed for the Capitol about 4. I'll stick with ~100,000 participated at one point or another.
From Paul Schindler, editor of Gay City News, comes this comment:
As it turned out I was not down there, but many of the folks who were seemed to have been buying into some fairly unbelievable gross-ups of the numbers. The C-Span shots -- and the physical geography the crowd took up -- seem to bear out a number in the low tens of thous ... I would say 20-40K seems reasonable.
The notion that 100-250 K could be fit into an area that barely went past the reflecting pool immediately in front of the capitol seems ridiculous given past Marches on Washington including the 63 event and some of the 1969-70 anti-war moratorium marches.
I think a characterization of "tens of thousands" is what we will likely go with.
Longtime queer civil rights advocate and progressive organizer Bill Dobbs of NYC sent along an excellent survey of crowd estimates by the media for Cleve's rally today. Bill also shared this note:
The links are good for the overall coverage also. 'Tens of thousands' is taking hold as the consensus. Except for the Advocate no one ventured even one hundred thousand. More data on crowd density and how large an area the rally occupied would help. Maybe there will be some aerial shots posted soon. Beyond the crowd figure - which is only an educated guess - what does this mean in the context of other national mobilizations? This may have been smaller than the 1979 attendance which I seem to recall was 100,000 according to the Wash Post.
On the more militant end, the protest at HRC's was something of a test as well - it drew 75 people according to the Washington Blade.
A quick survey of some key outlets: they lean to ‘tens of thousands’ for crowd figure, some going with ‘thousands.’ The Advocate, which erroneously reported Frank Kameny dead some time ago, has the highest figure – 200,000.
AP 7:07pm story
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Lede: Tens of thousands of gay rights supporters marched Sunday from the White House to the Capitol, demanding that President Barack Obama keep his promises to allow gays to serve openly in the military and work to end discrimination against gays.
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Lede: Impatient and discouraged by what they see as a certain detachment by President Obama on their issues, gay rights supporters took to the streets of the capital on Sunday in the largest demonstration for gay rights here in nearly a decade.
Lower: an eager crowd of tens of thousands that gathered on the West Lawn of the Capitol Sunday
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/...
Lede: Thousands of gay and lesbian activists marched on Washington Sunday, the first step in a national effort to grant gays and lesbians equal rights on everything from marriage to serving in the military.
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Lede: Tens of thousands of gay rights activists marched past the White House to the Capitol yesterday, demanding the right to marry and serve openly in the U.S. Military.
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/...
Lede: Calling for an end to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy and equality in marriage, thousands of gay rights supporters marched by the White House and on to the Capitol to rally.
Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/...
Lede: Tens of thousands of gay rights supporters rallied in the nation's capital Sunday, marching from the White House to the Capitol demanding federal action on a whole host of issues from workplace discrimination to marriage.
Advocate.com
Home page teaser: Walking the two miles from Dupont Circle to the Capitol Building, some 100,000+ LGBT’s and their allies are on the streets of Washington demanding equal rights.
http://www.advocate.com/...
News story lede: Crowding nearly every corner of the streets between Washington D.C.'s Dupont Circle and the Capitol Building, some 200,000 people gathered for the National Equality March