The protest was sponsored by United for Peace and Justice and Act Now to Stop War and Racism (A.N.S.W.E.R.). Organizers estimated 300,000 participated. Charles Ramsey, the city’s police chief, said the number exceeded 100,000.

For Cassandra Stevens, like many other young people participating, this was her first demonstration. Stevens, 21, from nearby Fairfax, Virginia, said she was on her way to Washington’s Chinatown area when she noticed all the people on the Metro. After finding they were going to the antiwar protest, she decided on the spot to join them.

Karissa Stotts, 20, was part of a group that drove 20 hours from Storm Lake, Iowa. She is also building a conference on women’s rights hosted by the Feminist Majority Leadership to take place in Cleveland in November.

Many said they also came to express their anger at the government’s inaction as the social disaster unfolded in New Orleans and the Gulf region in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Some carried signs that read, “Make levees, not war!”—a reference to breeches in levees that flooded 80 percent of New Orleans. “The war is the worst thing that could possibly happen now that New Orleans needs immediate attention,” said Gabriel Bonnanno, a 17-year-old high school student from New York. He expressed hope that the United Nations would come into Iraq because the U.S. military is only “fueling the insurgency.”

There was sustained applause for Cindy Sheehan, who staged a 26-day vigil in August along the road leading to President George Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. Sheehan demanded to meet with Bush, who refused to do so. Thousands of opponents of the war visited the vigil, called Camp Casey, in honor of Sheehan’s son who was killed in Iraq last year. Thousands more held vigils across the country in solidarity with Camp Casey.

Among the most prominent speakers were Democratic Party politician Jesse Jackson, former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark, and British Member of Parliament George Galloway. “We’ll change the Congress in 2006 and take back the White House in 2008,” said Jackson. Clark called on participants in the protest to work for the impeachment of Bush for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Galloway stated, “We love our troops. It is [British prime minister] Tony Blair and George Bush who hate our troops.”

Most of the signs and banners at the protest focused on opposition to the Bush administration. James Atkinson, a member of the Service Employees International Union who works at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, said the union organized 11 buses from New York and some 300 members from Washington to participate in the march. He said locals of the union in New York and Washington recently merged. “All of us want the same thing, Bush out and an end to the war,” Atkinson said.

Arrin Hawkins and Ryan Scott contributed to this article.
 
 
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