Following the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump on Friday, a demonstration estimated to be one of the largest nationwide swelled across cities globally on Saturday, including thousands of people from the Bay Area.
The totals are still trickling in, but a tally from organizers and police indicate there were roughly 300, 000 men, women and children taking to the streets throughout San Francisco, Silicon Valley and the East Bay. The number grows even bigger when smaller cities are counted too. There were plenty of people carrying "Girls just want to have fun-damental rights" and "I'm a feminist" in places such as tiny coastal Pacifica, Redwood City and more conservative Walnut Creek.
As for what's next? Organizers are now trying to harness the energy from the varied grassroots groups who came out in force over the weekend, and figure out the answer to that very question.
San Francisco: 150,000 marchers
Estimates for the Women's March in San Francisco are between 100,000 to 150,000 people, however, the San Francisco Police Department does not record official crowd numbers.
East Bay: 105,000 marchers
Outside of San Francisco, Oakland reported the biggest march near Frank Ogawa Plaza and Lake Merritt with early crowd estimates of 100,000 people, police said.
Local
Estimates range from three to 10,000 people for the march on Saturday in Walnut Creek and another 500 people are estimated to have attended in Albany.
Peninsula: 1,000 marchers
Pacifica police are estimating 250 people showed up to a march on the coast side, and between 50 to100 in San Mateo. There were no estimates available for a community rally filling Redwood City's Courthouse Square.
South Bay: 25,000 to 38,000 marchers
Smaller marches were held in the Bay Area with police estimating about 25,000 people in San Jose as the event got started and 30,000 to 38,000 people estimated by organizers at the end.
North Bay: 3,000 marchers
The Napa Valley Register estimated a few thousand attended a local march in Napa.
Nationwide
As of right now, two data scientists are trying to pool resources to get the public more accurate numbers from a day estimated to make historical numbers.
Spearheading the project is Erica Chenoweth at the University of Denver and Jeremy Pressman at the University of Connecticut.
Its no small feat as they’ve already recorded marches held in 500 cities in the U.S. alone with between 3.2 and 3.7 million people. That number could grow as protest organizers estimate as many as 5.5 million participants worldwide.
Pressman said curiosity started the project.
"As Saturday unfolded, it seemed like more marches were happening than I expected," Pressman said. "Many people forwarded links to reports. We have now stopped taking in new information and are just assessing what we have received."
The two believe they’ll have better estimates assessed later this week.
‘What’s Next?’
The question on so many minds — and social media feeds — of what's next for those that came out to march.
"My inbox is full of all kinds of ideas, especially what's next," said Jenny Bradanini, who co-led the Women's March in San Jose.
Currently, she said California organizers are mobilizing to connect women with community groups and actions that showed up to gather signatures and support for their causes.
"This turned out to be a movement that none of us envisioned it to be," Bradanini said. "It' going to be a different environment going forward."
With one of the largest nationwide marches outside of Washington D.C. occurring in Los Angeles, organizers estimate that one in five marchers were people in California.
She said that was a powerful statistic to hear and wants people in this state to get involved with community action groups going forward or by gathering a group of close friends and family to start a discussion.
"It is political, yes, but another really important part of this is community," Bradanini said. "Gather a community and talk about things - about the issues that are important to you."
