Prop 8 Marches
At 5:30pm on Tuesday, thousands of Prop 8 protesters rallied in front of San Francisco City Hall. Then they marched past the Supreme Court, down Market Street, and into Yerba Buena Park.
In the park, they staged another rally, albiet to a lower scale. The light was poor and there wasn’t as much emotion in the protesters, so at this point, most of the media left.
I was waiting around in the crowd when I heard some screaming and saw two police officers carrying away a protester, so I immediately ran over and grabbed photos of the arrest.
The crowd in the park followed and encircled the officers, chanting “Let her go!” As the officers disappeared through a police line, a scuffle broke out and a second protester was taken down. The police moved their line down the street in attempt to contain the now outraged crowd, but they left an opening at a crosswalk. Noticing the opening, protesters poured into the street and headed out on a second, completely impromptu march.
The marchers headed back down Market Street towards the Castro District, snaking through different side streets to further throw off the police.
By the time they reached the intersection of Castro and Market, they had effectively lost most of the police, and so they staged a sit-in at the intersection now famous for Harvey Milk’s gay rights movements.
After a little while, everyone stood up and began marching all the way back to Union Square. However, a few blocks later, a truck blasting music and heading in the opposite direction turned the march around. The marchers ended back at the intersection of Market and Castro, and proceeded to take over the streets in the form of a massive dance party.
Crazy.
