We were so far back we couldn't see or hear anything. We were very close to the mall area and there were A LOT of people behind us spilling into the mall area. I would say the crowd in the mall area took up about 1/3 of the entire mall, but again, it's hard to say because people began just moving around all over the place because you couldn't see or hear anything back there. It could have gone further back at some points during the day. I also read on here that protesters were told to move from the mall area because some other organization had permits for the area. There was a “Black Family Reunion” taking place on the mall at the same time. They didn't have a lot of people but they did take up a lot of space with tents and vendors. I know a lot of people from the protest went there to buy some food and use the port-o-potties because the ones for our event always were about 30 people deep. Anyway, my point is, there was not enough space for everyone and because you couldn't hear, let alone see, the speakers, a lot of people simply took off after the march. I think the aerial shots of the marchers is where the real number probably is.
We're you there early and do you know why the march started way earlier than the 11:30 time it was suppose to start? We got there around 10:20 and the march had already started. IT WAS PACKED! We squeezed in the middle of it and it was nothing but a sea of people in front and behind us.
My understanding was that the march was to start from Freedom Plaza at 11:30 am. But when I checked the 14th St/E St. Webcame at 10:30am, the swarm of people was already way up Pennsylvania Ave., near the Capitol Building. To me, this was obviously because Freedom Plaza overflowed.
I got to Freedom Plaza about 11:15am. The Plaza was already empty, but Penn Ave. was a mass of humanity. I filed in on the march to the Capitol, thinking I was among the last to arrive. But as I kept looking back every few minutes, there was just a wall of people behind me as far as I could see. I have no idea where all those people behind me came from, nor where all those tens of thousands of people I had seen on the Webcam an hour before had gone to.
A-M-A-Z-I-N-G as all I can say. My a$$ if there were not more than 1 million people there. Easily.