Commentary
The Crowd Counting Consortium recorded more than 1,800 protest events in the U.S. in March 2021, with roughly 88,000 to 125,000 participants in the events.
So far, the Crowd Counting Consortium has recorded more than 1,800 protest events in the U.S. in March 2021, with roughly 88,000 to 125,000 participants in the events for which we were able to find information about crowd size (a little more than half of the events recorded). That’s an 80-percent increase in the number of events over the previous month and more than five times as many events as we recorded in March of 2020.
The political themes associated with U.S. protest activity in March did not change dramatically from February, but the predominance of the leading theme did.
As noted in a previous post, one striking feature of the wave of “Stop Asian Hate” events that swept across the country in March (and continued into April) has been its geographic breadth. As the map below shows, while the peaks of this wave have occurred in or near large metropolitan areas on the West and East Coasts, many smaller towns in parts of the country with relatively few Asian-American residents also saw actions in the wake of the March 16 mass shooting in Georgia. In this sense, the Stop Asian Hate wave resembles the initial weeks of the George Floyd uprising, albeit still on a smaller scale. Also interesting, many of the initial flurry of Stop Asian Hate events took the form of vigils rather than rallies or demonstrations, and local and state elected officials often participated in (or even organized) them.
Notably lacking in the set of events we’ve logged for March so far are ones with a right-wing bent. Only 116 of the more than 1,800 events recorded, or about 6 percent, fit that description. A sizable fraction of those events came on a single day, March 20, when a transnational action dubbed the World Wide Rally for Freedom spawned actions in more than 30 U.S. cities and towns. The claims expressed varied from location to location, but the dominant theme of these events—in and outside the U.S.—was opposition to government infringements on personal liberty in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Commentary
Drawing from her experience deploying an AI-powered chatbot to share accurate voting information during Venezuela’s recent election, Isabella Picón explains how AI technologies can enhance electoral participation and support pro-democracy movements.
Commentary
Freddy Guevara offers a fundamental playbook for social activists on how to augment advocacy efforts with artificial intelligence technologies
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Erica Chenoweth shares a brief addendum to the Nonviolent Action Lab’s workshop held in December 2024 on how AI can influence social mobilization, for better or worse.
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In response to the recent anti-democratic patterns in the United States, the Ash Center hosted a panel of Harvard scholars to discuss how civil society can resist democratic backsliding through social mobilization and organizing.
