“Contrary to what’s been reported in many media accounts, the D.C. March for Our Lives crowd was not primarily made up of teenagers,” Fisher wrote. “Only about 10 percent of the participants were under 18.”
Fisher has been doing research on the crowds of protesters who have been rallying in Washington D.C. ever since Donald Trump was elected president. She explained that she, along with a team of researchers, have been attending marches and “sampling every fifth person at designated increments within the staging area.” They have collected data on 1,745 people, including 256 people who attended the March for Our Lives rally on March 25th.
Fisher found that women made up around 70% of the crowd and that just 10% of the attendees were under the age of 18. She discovered that many of people she spoke with who were attending their first protest were not there specifically to demand new gun control laws.
Even more interesting, the new protesters were less motivated by the issue of gun control. In fact, only 12 percent of the people who were new to protesting reported that they were motivated to join the march because of the gun-control issue, compared with 60 percent of the participants with experience protesting.
Instead, new protesters reported being motivated by the issues of peace (56 percent) and Trump (42 percent), who has been a galvanizing force for many protests.
Just over 200,000 people attended the march in Washington D.C.
Fisher will be posting her findings in a book titled American Resistance, which is due to come out following the 2018 midterm elections.
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Article Appeared @https://wgci.iheart.com/content/2018-03-28-teenagers-made-up-just-10-of-march-for-our-lives-crowd/