A sea of people stretching more than one mile long and taking up four lanes of roadway marched through the nation's capitol Saturday in vocal and colorful opposition to the U.S. government's drive to war with Iraq.
Tens of thousands of people of diverse ages and ethnic backgrounds braved frigid weather to peacefully rally in front of Congress and march in the streets of Washignton, DC, to oppose war and to demand peace and justice. In the game of estimating crowd size, police said about 30,000 people participated while organizers put the number at 500,000. Many independent observers estimated about 200,000 people participated, which made it twice as large as the last anti-war rally in DC in October.
Anti-war rallies were also held in other cities throughout the world Saturday — from Tokyo to San Francisco — creating one of the strongest shows of force to date by hundreds of thousands of people around the world against the U.S. government's plan to attack Iraq.
The event in DC was organized by the International ANSWER coaltion, which has gained a reputation for putting on very controlled and disciplined actions.
However, the march became a free-for-all when it reached its scheduled destination point — the ritzy Washington Navy Yard in Southeast — because the city government refused to allow organizers to set up a stage and sound system. Without a final rallying point, people continued marching in the street and headed back toward Congress, which has given the Bush administration near-unanimous support for attacking Iraq.
The signifcance of the event became immediately apparent: For perhaps the first time in history, a massive march of people against war was on the loose in the nation's capitol, controlling the streets and showing no signs of stopping.
"I guess we'll just keep going throughout the city," said one upbeat woman, her cold breath visible in the frigid air that was below 30 degrees.
When an organizer was asked what the plan was now, the only reply was: "That's a good question."
As the march went along M Street in the southeast, it passed the Arthur-Capper public housing complex, which the city government wants to demolish in order to build a mixed-use park with residential and commercial property. Suddenly, residents of the complex — mostly impoverised African Americans — joined the march, chanting "No War for Oil" and "Down with Bush."
This all was apparently too much for the city to handle. Police suddenly appeared and established a police line at the intersection of M Street and First Street. The front of the march stopped cold against a wall of police cars and officers standing in unison. Some people demanded the police let them continue marching. The police stood firm, only allowing people to go down an alley to a side street.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a noted civil rights leader, was standing at the front of the march. Jackson told the police he had a constitutional right to continue walking forward, and that there were hundreds of thousands of people behind him who planned to do the same.
For a moment, it looked like a truely historical moment was in the works: Jackson was standing at the frontline of a massive antiwar march, face to face with mainly African-American cops who had arbitrairly set up a police line to stop people from expressing their dissent.
After about 15 minutes, though, the scene was diffused. Jackson pleaded again to be let through the police line, saying he had to get to the airport and that he would walk on the sidewalk until he could flag down a taxi.
While Jackson was making his case, an elderly woman walked up next to him and told police she had an emergency and needed to pass in order to get to a nearby metro station. The woman lost her balance at one point and almost fell down, repeating that she was having an emergency.
The police refused to let the woman pass, but opened their line for Jackson to walk through. Jackson silently slipped through the line and walked away from the crowd, where the elderly women remained in peril and public housing residents looked on confusingly.
When asked, Jackson didn't express remorse for leaving the march behind.
"I had to use the toilet and catch a taxi to the airport," he said. He added that he was willing to go to jail in order to get through the police line, and that anybody else could have passed the line by saying they would walk on the sidewalk, too.
Eventually, the police began to let people pass one by one as long as they walked on the sidewalk, but the majority of people were directed down the side alley. The entire march eventually ended, with organizers and participants overall calling it a massive success.
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