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April 21, 2002
WASHINGTON -- Marching with puppets and placards and armed with many messages, tens of thousands of protesters joined forces on a warm spring Saturday to demonstrate peacefully against everything from U.S. policy in the Mideast to globalization and corporate greed.
Protesters massed at sites across the city, then swarmed down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol, in an eclectic crowd that mixed young communists, Black Panthers and "Raging Grannies." People came in busloads from around the country to show there are vibrant opposition views in the United States.
"I think the movement is beginning to wake up," said 80-year-old Valerie Mullen of Vershire, Vt., part of the "grannies" group. She said she came to protest "any war."
Kira Appleman, 6, of Silver Spring, Md., came with her mom and held aloft a sign that said, "Palestinian children have rights, too." Palestinian flags proliferated as demonstrators marched through downtown.
The various groups converged for a concluding rally near the Capitol and support for the Palestinians' cause was the main theme of the day. Authorities do not provide official crowd figures for demonstrations in Washington, but police Chief Charles Ramsey gave a rough estimate of 35,000 to 50,000.
With helicopters hovering overhead, police with wooden batons and their riot gear close by kept watch around the city, standing shoulder to shoulder along the marchers' route. A brief rain shower sent some demonstrators ducking for cover but most continued their march.
As the day's events wound down, there had been no arrests.
"It's been very peaceful, very orderly, just the way it's supposed to be," Assistant Police Chief Terrance Gainer said.
More protests were planned for the next two days, and Ramsey said police were "going to have our hands full" on Monday, when several unauthorized rallies were expected during morning rush hour.
It was the spring meeting of world financial powers at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund that attracted the protesters to Washington, but antiglobalization forces did not seem to mind sharing the stage with many other causes.
The various protests are "all connected in the sense that it's all part of how the world economic structure works," said Brad Duncan, 24, of Detroit.
At the institutions' spring meeting two years ago, police made 1,300 arrests.
This time, one of the biggest groups sought to show solidarity with the Palestinians and protest U.S. policy that demonstrators said was tilted toward Israel.
In a counterdemonstration, a few hundred people gathered on the mall to show their support of U.S. policies. Some carried signs that said, "Peace through superior fire power."
Outside the barricaded buildings of the IMF and World Bank, where world financial powers were meeting, a 30-foot-tall inflated Earth bearing a "For Sale" sign and the Citibank logo was erected.
Not all groups were in perfect agreement. When Black Panthers chanting "jihad" and "holy war" hoisted a Palestinian flag next to a picture of Osama bin Laden, a Palestinian activist urged them to take the flag down.