In a story on yesterday's May Day immigration law protests, AP is very carefully reporting the totals from cities all across the country. Doing the math, I put the reported numbers for the whole country at at least 116,335.
In LA, protestors numbered 50,000, described by AP as "massive."
In NY, they managed only 6,500, where the organizer described the nationwide protests as the awakening of "a sleeping giant."
In Chicago, police estimated the crowds at 8,000.
At The White House, 35 cranks were arrested for civil disobedience.
In Dallas, 20,000 protested, a handful with signs saying Arizona's Governor is a Nazi and Sheriff Joe a Klansman.
In Denver there were 3,000, in Miami hundreds.
In Houston 7,000.
In Atlanta and Milwaukee each, 5,000, while 3,000 were counted in Boston.
Ann Arbor demonstrators numbered 500.
Tucson, AZ, had 5,000, and Phoenix had "several thousand," according to AP, which also said in San Francisco one counter-protestor had a sign saying "We Need More Ice At This Fiesta."
This is all in sharp contrast to the rallies of four years ago. In 2006 "more than 1 million people across the country" were counted, according to AP. In 2010 barely 10% of that.
Yep, that new Arizona law really galvanized dissent yesterday.
