Glenn Beck speaking on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA
Tens of thousands descended on Washington today for one of the biggest culture clashes in decades – one that pitted an almost exclusively white crowd against one that was predominantly African-American. Both claimed the legacy of Martin Luther King.
The biggest crowd was for a rightwing rally supported by the Fox Television host and author Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and Tea Party activists, who gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, where King delivered his "I have a dream" speech 47 years ago to the day.
Beck estimated that the crowd, the biggest show of strength by Tea Party activists this year, numbered in the hundreds of thousands, many of whom had travelled long distances. He claimed he had been unaware when he organised the rally that it coincided with the King anniversary, but insisted that the civil rights leader was an inspiration for all Americans and not any one section of the community.
The other rally, held hours later, was a more traditional event, supported mainly by African-Americans, marching through Washington to mark the anniversary of King's speech. Many of those on the march accused Beck of hypocrisy and of stirring up the black community.
One of the marchers, Chicago student Brendan Yukins, 18, said of the Beck rally: "It is really insulting… the Tea Party always makes a big deal of being open to everyone, but when you look at the crowd it is white, over-45s."
Beck, conscious that so many of these events are judged on the numbers of those attending, looked out on a crowd that stretched from the Lincoln Memorial all the way up the Mall to the Washington Memorial, and put the figure at more than 450,000.
Even if the final tally is lower, the crowd was still substantial and a tribute to his drawing power. The rally had no specific agenda, billing itself as "restoring honour" to the US and rekindling what Beck and other speakers saw as the spirit of the American Revolution – family values, low taxation and cutting the federal deficit.
He told the crowd, in a speech peppered with references to God: "For too long, this country has wandered in darkness, and we have wandered in darkness in periods from the beginning.
"We have had moments of brilliance and moments of darkness. But this country has spent far too long worried about scars and thinking about the scars and concentrating on the scars. Today, we are going to concentrate on the good things in America, the things that we have accomplished – and the things that we can do tomorrow."
drive from www.guardian.co.uk