Women’s March Sets Among Largest Demonstrations in Chicago History

By Don Kleppin, WLS-AM News

(CHICAGO) On Saturday, 250,000 people gathered for Chicago’s Women’s March, making it one of the largest protests in city history.

The event was held across seven continents and hundreds of cities to show solidarity and to protest newly inaugurated President Donald Trump. Only Washington D.C. and Los Angeles reportedly had more people show up than Chicago.

So many people came in fact, the march itself was canceled.

The largest protest in Chicago history, however, happened May 1, 2006, when around 400,000 people marched against anti-immigration laws.

Examining all events worldwide, such as sports parades or rallies, the Women’s March is much further from the top. For instance, two million people showed for a parade honoring the Apollo 11 astronauts, three million for a General MacArthur speech in 1951 and a mass from Pope John Paul II drew one million.

The largest event Chicago’s history seems to be the 2016 Cubs rally and parade for which the city says five million people showed up.