On This Day spotlights a historic New York Times front-page article. For teaching ideas, visit this resource.
1969
250,000 War Protesters Stage Peaceful Rally in Washington; Militants Stir Clashes Later
By John Herbers
Special to The New York Times
Washington, Nov. 15—A vast throng of Americans, predominantly youthful and constituting the largest mass march in the nation’s capital, demonstrated peacefully in the heart of the city today, demanding a rapid withdrawal of United States troops from Vietnam.
The District of Columbia Police Chief, Jerry Wilson, said a “moderate” estimate was that 250,000 had paraded on Pennsylvania Avenue and had attended an antiwar rally at the Washington Monument. Other city officials said aerial photographs would later show that the crowd had exceeded 300,000.
Until today, the largest outpouring of demonstrators was the gentle civil rights march of 1963, which attracted, 200,000. Observers of both marches said the throng that appeared today was clearly greater than the outpouring of 1963.
This event occurred on Nov. 15, but appeared in the Nov. 16 issue of The New York Times. Read the entire article or explore this issue in full in TimesMachine.
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