How Many People At The Rally And Were They Racists?
Aug 29, 2010 Political
The usual post rally numbers game is underway and people are saying that as few as 87,000 and as many as 1 million people attended the Restoring Honor event in DC. The liberal left needs to minimize the numbers because the bigger the numbers are the weaker its position becomes.
I was at the rally and I believe there were closer to a million people than to 87,000. The New Carrollton Metro station had 8000 to 10,000 people in line when I arrived. It took nearly 2 hours to get to the train and when I did get on the train the line down below was longer than when I arrived. The entire Mall was surrounded by people and the crowd extended to the Washington Monument. The open area to the left (when looking at the Lincoln Memorial) was completely full of people and the right had densely packed groups way into the wood line (they cannot be seen from the overhead shots but they were there and they were packed in there).
The crowd was mostly white (as is the population of this country) but there were quite a few people of color in attendance. I saw many, many people who were not white and they appeared to be enjoying themselves. In fact, two women of color were walking next to me on the way to the Mall and one looked to the other and said; “Can you believe he asked me where the Al Sharpton event was? I told him over there where those 10 people are. I am going down here where everyone else is.” She was amused that the person would assume that since she was not white she would be on her way to see Sharpton rather than Beck. She got a huge laugh out of it as did everyone with whom she shared the story.
I understand that the left is upset by all the attention non liberal groups get and it needs to fight it any way it can. This is why everything is labeled racist. But minimizing the crowd at this event and repeating the same tired lines about it being very white is getting old. Whites are a majority of the population and when one considers that 95% of blacks are held captive on the Democrat plantation then it is easy to see why throngs of blacks are not at these types of events. However, rejecting the validity of an event because it has too many people of one color and not enough of another makes no sense and is very dangerous. Those who think that any rally that consists of mostly white people is not valid would have to invalidate the Al Sharpton rally that consisted mostly of black people.
Additionally, this picture of the Martin Luther King “I have a dream” speech shows the crowd to be almost all black. No whites are found in the picture of the crowd. I am sure some were there but since whites made up 60%-70% of the population (probably more like 80% back then) at that time then this crowd is disproportionately black. I find that perfectly acceptable but if we are going to use the diversity of color at an event to give it credibility or validity then MLK’s speech was not credible and not valid. I would also point out that Obama’s inauguration had huge numbers of blacks in the crowd, numbers that were hugely disproportionate to their representation in the country. Does this mean that event lacked validity?
There are plenty of pictures of the crowd and they tell a story that makes it clear more than 87,000 people were there. MLK had 200,000 to 250,000 at his speech and the Restoring Honor pictures show more people than attended King’s speech so it is logical to assume that there were more than 200,000 people there. I think that the number is 600,000 to 1 million but have no way of knowing and no agency does any official counting.
It would be interesting to know how many Metro tickets were sold. That would give a good indication of how many people were there.
Suffice it to say that the event is not well received by liberals who cannot grasp the concept of honor and who cannot see anything but racism in such events. It will drive them nuts for some time to come.
I also add that there were many people opposed to Beck having this rally in the same place where MLK had his speech and on the same date that the speech occurred. Al Sharpton was very upset about this claiming that Beck was against what MLK stood for (which Sharpton erroneously believes to be the removal of state’s rights) and challenged Beck to debate the Ground Zero Mosque issue, which Sharpton supports. This challenge came as Sharpton appeared on Geraldo Rivera’s show. So does anyone else find it ironic that Sharpton complains about the location of Beck’s rally but dismisses this concern (location) from people opposed to the mosque? Thanks to Rick for this insight.
Anyone want to wager that the people offended at Glen Beck’s choice of location for his Restoring Honor rally in DC (where Martin Luther King held his I Have A Dream speech) are the same people defending the location of the mosque at Ground Zero?
Anyone?
We will hear more in the days ahead…
Here are some great pictures and interesting takes on the rally:
Affirmative Action Counting for DC Events
Leftists Could Find No Racism at Restoring Honor Rally
Wrap Up and Whitewash (Plus, who is cleaner and where is the racism)
An enormous and impassioned crowd (and from the New York Times no less)
Washington Compost (the added “mostly black” to the Sharpton crowd report later, probably in response to a comment asking why it was not reported the same way as the RH Rally)
CNN article Note how many comments refer to the WHITE crowd
Why is there this assumption that MLK and his speech were a black only thing?
Cave Canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: al sharpton march, civil rights, DC, glenn beck, liberalism, mlk, racism, restoring honor rally, sarah palin