I don't always agree with Sherry Wolf (or with anyone always, of course) but the comments below seem to me about right. In Portland, there were, by at least one count, 50,000 (so, proportionately a better turnout than NYC). Many were masked, and I appreciate all those protecting everyone's health in the crowd.
Important to remember also that in discussing 'nonviolent' protests, the violence generally comes from the police, so the peacefulness, some have suggested, comes from police having underestimated turnout (and thus being unprepared for encountering the crowd) or indifference to the actions of old white people likely to go home after the march.
I've heard that there are nationwide calls for further marches April 19 & May 1, but have not seen anything definite for PDX. There is, however, an upcoming meeting April 12 dedicated to building long-term alliances--not just mobilizing people to protest but organizing to gain positive changes. Portland Rising: The Power of Coalition from Jobs with Justice & others: Saturday, April 12, 2025 10:00 AM-12:00PM at P.A.T. Hall, 345 NE 8th Ave., Portland, OR 97232. Wheelchair accessible; Masks required and provided. https://actionnetwork.org/events/portland-rising-the-power-of-coalition
Sherry Wolf posts:
5 takeaways from April 5th in NYC:
- 100,000 came out—mostly as individuals and not organized in groups, folks who don’t usually or ever protest on a day the city’s far left leadership was in DC for the massive Palestine protest there. Notably, thousands in NYC wore keffiyehs & carried signs about Gaza, it’s too intertwined with our national disaster to be scrubbed from an NYC protest
- Multigenerational, but skewed whiter and a bit older than NYC overall, indicating both the silos we’re in and that it was disproportionately citizens who don’t fear deportation but loss of careers, social security, Medicare, etc. these were downwardly mobile middle- and working-class people with something to lose
- The politically broad but hollow call to action—“Hands Off”— meant that the momentary vacuum could be filled by individuals or small groups putting forward chants and slogans for others, which is what I did on the march from the subway and later with union comrades for more than an hour outside the library raising explicitly anti-fascist, pro-trans and immigrant and unite and fight type chants and got tens of thousands to vigorously take them up while marching past; others did this along the way, too!
- Leftists need to learn what a united front means in practice—the denunciations online of the vacuousness of a “Hands Off” call are unhelpful; possibly 1 million people nationally turned out because they’re scared and want to find a way to fight—we need to put forward and fight for political positions inside these formations, not denounce them
- Mass actions raise the prospect of mass strikes; union leaders need to start organizing strike calls with Black, queer and immigrant groups—days of action, walk-ins, walkouts, rolling strikes—which can’t be summoned the same way as a call to action in a moment of extreme fear rage.
