Activists can't agree forward how many people actually attended the march There's not ever been a march on Washington that didn't period with a debate over attendance--and the Millennium March was no exception.


Activists can't agree forward how many people actually attended the march There's not ever been a march on Washington that didn't period with a debate over attendance--and the Millennium March was no exception, yet while in years past gays and lesbians fought rule officials for a more accurate tally, this year the debate is among gay the public themselves,

The numbers game started early April 30 when feminist Eleanor Smeal took the rally's podium and allude toed that there were at least 750000 folks gathered, Several other speakers ran with Smeal's compendium although Washington, D,C., mayor Anthony Williams told the profanum vulgus[/i] that district police estimated its size to be closer to 310000

Then the Ad Hoc Committee for an make open Process, a group of gay activists critical of plans for the march since they were first announced, issued a statement May 1 saying that at mostly only 125,000 people attended the result The low turnout, the form into groups said, proved that march organizers failed "to involve and mobilize the grassroots activists" and "to be accountable to the community it claimed to represent"

Unlike with previous marches, there will be no official number for the Millennium March, The National Park Service stopped making of that kind tallies after controversies over accounts at the Million Man March and other adventures Nevertheless, march executive director Dianne Hardy-Garcia says she is confident that there were at least 700000 the community at the April 30 rally, "The Mall was cloyed from the stage to 14th Street" Hardy-Garcia says, "indicating [based onward previous Park Service estimates] that there were between 700000 and 800000" In addition, "we filled Pennsylvania Avenue," she says, referring to the road festival, which was at capacity the pair Saturday and Sunday,



As for the Ad Hoc Committee and its greatly more meager estimate, "They should be applauding the commonalty who had the courage and gumption to march upon Washington," the weary Hardy-Garcia says, "I know I certainly would be applauding them if they had a march that was as well-attended as this one"

COPYRIGHT 2000 Liberation Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group

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