A step backward
Division, weather woe shrink Women’s March
Saturday’s national Women’s March in Washington is expected to draw just 10,000 people — a drastic downsizing from the up to 1 million who came out for the inaugural 2017 event.
That’s fewer people than the typical crowd at a Nets game, which usually has about 15,000 fans in attendance at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center.
The estimate comes from a National Park Service public gathering permit that lists the anticipated number of participants at 10,000.
The group organizing the event, Women’s March Inc., has been embroiled in controversy since several of its board members have been accused of making anti-Semitic remarks toward other founding members, and have attended events where Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan made derogatory comments about Jews.
On Monday, Tamika Mallory, co-president and board member of Women’s March Inc., appeared on “The View” and explained why she once posted a photo of herself with Farrakhan on Instagram, calling him “the GOAT,” or “Greatest of All Time.”
“I didn’t call him the Greatest of All Time because of his rhetoric,” Mallory said on the talk show. “I called him the Greatest of All Time because of what he’s done in black communities.”
A snowstorm set to sweep the East Coast this weekend may also contribute to diminished crowds. And the Women’s March blamed the National Park Service for moving the rally start to Freedom Plaza, while organizers wanted to hold it on the Lincoln Memorial steps.
“They can’t shutdown the #WomensWave...but they can make us relocate due to snow,” the official Twitter account for the Women’s March tweeted Wednesday. “NPS wanted us to cancel the march altogether. We told them we were marching with or without their permission, and we secured a permit to march on Pennsylvania Ave, past the Trump Hotel.”
The NPS, which has been affected by the government shutdown, denied claims that it pushed Women’s March Inc. to cancel the event, D.C.based CBS-affiliated station WUSA9 reports,
“Any assertion that the National Park Service has encouraged any organizer to cancel their First Amendment demonstration is patently false,” an NPS spokesman told WUSA9. “For generations, Americans have come to the National Mall to exercise their Constitutionally guaranteed rights to assemble and be heard. The National Park Service has been clear that our process would protect those fundamental rights by processing applications for First Amendment events that had been submitted prior to lapse of appropriations.”
Women’s March events are also taking place throughout the country Saturday. Some are affiliated with the Women’s March Inc. effort, while others have distanced themselves from the group amid the controversy.
In New York, two separate events are taking place in different areas of Manhattan. Women’s March Inc. is holding a rally in Foley Square, while Women’s March Alliance — an unaffiliated local group that has headed up march events in the city for the last two years — will kick off a march from Columbus Circle.