-I'll be walking with the DC Labor for Peace and Justice feeder march, -then volunteering as "security" for the Operation Ceasefire concert. -Someone doing far more organizing than I thought there'd be a turnout -in the neighborhood of 100,000.
Which is .03% of the US population. A pathetically small number for a national march, although not as embarassing as some of the previous ANSWER march numbers.
The march that will have much more serious numbers this fall is going to be the Millions More March, which has actually become a broad-based march, endorsed by most of the black community, from the Progressive National Baptist Convention to the Congressional Black Caucus. It will have lots of Democratics speaking from the podium because it's been deliberately a broad-based effort, despite Farrakahn's presence at the center. And it's been backed by serious grassroots organizing and outreach.
Up where I live in Harlem, I've seen lots of on-the-street organizing in preparation for that Millions More march for months-- with almost zero serious grassroots antiwar presence.
And what's clear about the Millions More movement is that they have plans to use the march to build further organization and local organizing for the future, unlike most antiwar marches where people just show up with no real followup plans other than the next march.
I'm not necessarily thrilled with Farrakahn starring in the show, but at least it's a real organizing effort with some long term strategy. Neither can be said about the antiwar marches.
-- Nathan