List of protests in the United States by size

The right to assemble is recognized as a human right and protected in the First Amendment of the US Constitution under the clause, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."[1]

Main article: List of protests in the United States

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Widespread mass protest became a distinct characteristic of 20th and 21st century American civic engagement, with each of the top ten attended protests occurring since 1974 and each of the top five (as listed below) occurring since the advent of the Trump administration.

Methodology

In 1995, the National Park Service estimated 400,000 people attended the Million Man March in Washington, D.C., the official count for the event.[2] The organizers said more than a million people turned out, and they threatened to sue the Park Service unless it revised its estimate. Congress, in response, barred the agency from producing any more crowd estimates.[3]

Since then, official crowd estimates for organized political protests, demonstrations, and marches have relied on an amalgam of police data, organizer estimates, the research of crowd scientists, and journalists.[4]

List

	Protest	City	Estimated participants	Date	Image
1	George Floyd protests	—	15,000,000-26,000,000[5]	May 26, 2020	Protestors in Minneapolis on May 28, 2020, three days after the killing of George Floyd.
2	2017 Women's March	—	3,300,000–5,600,000[6][7]	January 21, 2017	The Women's March on January 21, 2017, the day following the inauguration of Donald Trump.
3	March for Our Lives	—	1,200,000-2,000,000[8][9][10][11]	March 24, 2018	Protesters in Washington, D.C., 2018
4	2018 Women's March	—	1,500,000[12]	January 20, 2018	2018 Women's March in New York City
5	#RickyRenuncia	San Juan, Puerto Rico	~1,100,000[13]	July 22, 2019
6	March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation	Washington, D.C.	800,000–1,000,000[14][15]	April 25, 1993	Demonstrators in front of the White House
7	Anti-nuclear weapon march, part of the Nuclear Freeze campaign	New York City	700,000–1,000,000[16][17]	June 12, 1982
8	Million Man March	Washington, D.C.	670,000–800,000[18]	October 16, 1995
9	March for Women's Lives	Washington, D.C.	500,000–1,000,000[19][20]	April 25, 2004
10	Million Mom March	Washington, D.C.	750,000[21]	May 14, 2000
11	March for Science	—	400,000[22]–1,000,000[23]	April 22, 2017	Protesters in Washington, D.C., 2017
12	March for Life	Washington, D.C.	400,000-650,000 (2013 estimate from rally organizers)[24][25]	Annually since January 22, 1974	2013 march
13	Million Woman March	Philadelphia	500,000[26]	October 25, 1997
14	Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam	Washington, D.C.	500,000[27]	November 15, 1969
15	People's Climate March	New York City	311,000–400,000[28][29]	September 21, 2014
16	March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom	Washington, D.C.	250,000–300,000[30][31]	August 28, 1963
17	Solidarity Day march	Washington, D.C.	250,000–260,000[32][33]	September 19, 1981
18	February 15 Iraq war protests	New York City	200,000–375,000[34][35]	February 15, 2003
19	September 2019 climate strikes	New York City	250,000[36]	September 20, 2019
20	Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear	Washington, D.C.	215,000[37]	October 30, 2010
21	March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights	Washington, D.C.	200,000[38]	October 11, 1987	Nancy Pelosi participating in the march
22	2015 Armenian March for Justice	Los Angeles	130,000+[39]	April 24, 2015
23	1999 Seattle WTO protests	Seattle	40,000	November 30, 1999

See also

• List of protests in the United States
• List of protests in the 21st century

References

1. Andrew M., Winston (October 2014). "Right to Peaceful Assembly: United States". Library of Congress. Archived from the original on April 20, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
2. Michael, Janofsky (October 21, 1995). "Federal Parks Chief Calls 'Million Man' Count Low". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 5, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
3. Craven McGinty, Jo. "The 400,000 Man March? A Brief History of Crowd Counting". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on March 26, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
4. Sabrina, Stierwalt. "How Do You Estimate Crowd Size?". Scientific American. Archived from the original on March 26, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
5. Buchanan, Larry; Bui, Quoctrung; Patel, Jugal K. (July 3, 2020). "Black Lives Matter May Be the Largest Movement in U.S. History". The New York Times (online ed.). Retrieved July 21, 2020.
6. Owen, Tess (January 23, 2017). "The Women's March turnout is at 3.2 million and counting". Vice News (online ed.). Archived from the original on January 28, 2017. Retrieved January 25, 2017.
7. Waddell, Kavel (January 23, 2017). "The Exhausting Work of Tallying America's Largest Protest". The Atlantic (online ed.). Archived from the original on January 26, 2017. Retrieved January 25, 2017.
8. "More than 2 million joined March for Our Lives protests in 90 percent of U.S. voting districts". Newsweek. March 26, 2018. Archived from the original on March 27, 2018. Retrieved March 26, 2018.
9. "The odds that a gun will kill the average American may surprise you". Business Insider. Archived from the original on March 27, 2018. Retrieved March 26, 2018.
10. Shabad, Rebecca (March 24, 2018). "At March For Our Lives, survivors lead hundreds of thousands in call for change". NBC News. Archived from the original on March 24, 2018. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
11. "It's official: March for Our Lives was one of the biggest youth protests since the Vietnam War - Vox". www.vox.com. Archived from the original on March 26, 2018. Retrieved March 26, 2018.
12. Berquist, Aileen (January 29, 2018). "MARCH ON Gears Up for March On the Polls 2018" (online ed.). March On. Archived from the original on February 16, 2018. Retrieved February 15, 2018.
13. https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/rights-protesters/after-power-protest-ousts-governor-puerto-rico-has-new-leader-now
14. Smith, Nadine (April 25, 2013). "The 20th Anniversary of the LGBT March on Washington: How Far Have We Come?". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on March 21, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
15. Schmalz, Jeffrey (April 26, 1993). "March For Gay Rights; Gay Marchers Throng Mall in Appeal for Right". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 26, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
16. Jonathan, Schell (June 14, 2007). "The Spirit of June 12". The Nation (July 2, 2007 Issue). Archived from the original on March 26, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
17. Paul L., Montgomery (June 13, 1982). "Throngs Fill Manhattan to Protest Nuclear Weapons". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 10, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
18. Agrawal, Nina. "Before the Women's March on Washington there was the Million Woman March…and the Million Man March". The Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on March 26, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
19. Gibson, Megan. "The March for Women's Lives". Time. Archived from the original on March 27, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
20. "March For Women's Lives: Up to a Million Descend on DC in One of the Largest Protests in U.S. History". Democracy Now. April 26, 2004. Archived from the original on March 26, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
21. Gibson, Megan (August 12, 2011). "The Million Mom March". Time. Archived from the original on August 23, 2013. Retrieved December 29, 2018.
22. The Crowd-Counting Consortium estimated 399,521 to 677,304 participants. Chenoweth, Erica; Perkoski, Evan; Pressman, Jeremy; Thurber, Ches (May 22, 2017). "New data shows a sharp increase in U.S. protest activity in April". Washington Post. Retrieved June 7, 2020.
23. https://medium.com/marchforscience-blog/the-science-behind-the-march-for-science-crowd-estimates-f337adf2d665
24. "'Life is winning': Pence fired up March for Life crowd". Fox News. January 27, 2017. Archived from the original on January 21, 2018. Retrieved January 21, 2018.
25. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on June 17, 2018. Retrieved June 19, 2018.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
26. Tornquist, Cynthia (October 25, 1997). "Million Woman March fills Philadelphia streets". CNN. Archived from the original on March 26, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
27. History.com Staff. "Second moratorium against the war held". History.com. Archived from the original on March 26, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
28. Dastagir, Alia E. (September 21, 2014). "'Largest-ever' climate-change march rolls through NYC". USA Today. Archived from the original on March 21, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
29. Visser, Nick (September 21, 2014). "Hundreds of Thousands Turn Out For People's Climate March in New York City". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on March 17, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
30. "King speaks to March on Washington". History.com. Archived from the original on March 27, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
31. "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom". National Park Service. Archived from the original on March 26, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
32. Pianin, Eric; Brown, Warren (September 20, 1981). "250,000 March to Protest Reagan's Policies". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on April 18, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
33. Merlino, Joseph P. (November 1, 1981). "A Retrospective Look at What 'Solidarity Day' Meant". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 26, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
34. "Cities jammed in worldwide protest of war in Iraq". CNN. February 16, 2003. Archived from the original on May 8, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
35. Tharoor, Ishaan. "Viewpoint: Why Was the Biggest Protest in World History Ignored?". Time. Archived from the original on March 26, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
36. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/21/across-the-globe-millions-join-biggest-climate-protest-ever. Missing or empty |title= (help)
37. Montopoli, Brian (October 30, 2010). "Jon Stewart Rally Attracts Estimated 215,000". CBS News. Archived from the original on November 13, 2013. Retrieved March 26, 2018.
38. Williams, Lena (October 12, 1987). "200,000 March in Capital to Seek Gay Rights and Money for AIDS". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 27, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
39. Mejia, Brittny (April 24, 2015). "Armenian genocide: Massive march ends at Turkish consulate in L.A." The Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on August 20, 2017. Retrieved August 20, 2017.