1 million+ March buzz?
Is it just that I’ve been a little behind on the news the past few days, or is the march on Sunday barely registering out there? I can imagine what it was like and am so appreciative that so many marched. However, I don’t know anyone on a personal level who was able to go to D.C., so I feel like I’m not present to the empowerment and excitement - the actual impact of the demonstration - people returning from the march must feel.
It just seems to me as if very few people are talking about it. We watched a documentary in Social Movements today on the civil rights march on Washington in 1963 - there were 250,000 at that march and it reverberates strongly still today. After the lights came up, I turned to a (fairly progressive) classmate who sits next to me and said to her, “Did you hear? 1 million plus in D.C. on Sunday!” She looked at me blankly at first and then after a moment realized I was speaking of the pro-choice march. When I said, “I wish I could’ve been there,” she remarked, “Well, yeah, but I didn’t hear anything about it until it happened on Sunday,” and went on to say that the organizers could’ve done a better job letting people know about the march. wtf!! I’ve been hearing constantly about the March for Women’s Lives since last summer!
So for me, the whole thing begs two questions: 1) If over a million people from all walks of life can march on Washington and there’s barely a buzz, wow - what sort of complacency and disinterest does that indicate about Americans on average these days? 2) I can’t think of how march organizers could have done a better job reaching out to people like my classmate. I heard non-stop about the march through NARAL and Planned Parenthood e-mail list messages, posters around campus put up by the women’s resource center, all the blogs and news I read, labor news, talking with pro-choice friends, etc. Is it that messages such as mobilization for the march aren’t widespread and “loud” enough or that people just aren’t noticing them / tuning them out?
I say “people” very generally here, of course. Is my off reaction off-base or isolated? I hope it is. I hope this march has caused more of a stir than I am sensing today.
Joselle said,
April 27, 2004 @ 8:25 pm
I heard about the march for a good long while too. On the internet, all over campus and even through a TV ad or 2. I think the organizers did a great job getting the word out.
Elle said,
April 28, 2004 @ 9:15 am
I’m hoping your experience of post-March buzz is an anomaly, Emily. It has received a great deal of media coverage, even in international (uh, “non-U.S.”) media. The Washington Post had two lengthy stories about it Monday - one on the front page with a stunning aerial photograph showing the Mall packed with people from the Capitol to the Washington Monument. My traveling and marching buddies and I returned home on Monday, passing through two airports, and one of them was picking up newspapers everywhere we went, to see (and save) the coverage. It was front-page news nearly everywhere - WaPo, Chicago Herald, Financial Times, Chicago Tribune. There was even a story on the front page (photo-less and below-the-fold, but still front page!) of the newspaper here in Spokane when I got back home.
I took lots of pictures, and I’m hoping to post some, along with some reflective remarks, on my blog this weekend. First, I’ve got to deal with all the work that piles up when one is away from home and office for six days!