It’s fascinating seeing elements of pop cultural representations of protests feed back into the visual vocabulary of real political protests in the streets:

“Do u hear the people sing,” a banner at the protest in Hong Kong right now comes from the title of a song in Les Misérables, that hugely successful Broadway musical set during French Revolution.

This past June, Thailand’s Junta warned protesters: “[T]hey are monitoring a new form of silent resistance to the coup — a three-fingered salute borrowed from “The Hunger Games” — and will arrest those in large groups who ignore warnings to lower their arms.”

And of course, the Guy Fawkes mask from Alan Moore's comic book V for Vendetta, later adapted into a Hollywood movie, was adopted by various Occupy protestors.

Related, the Pink Bloque (2001-2005) was a Chicago-based radical feminist dance troupe challenging the white supremacist capitalist patriarchal empire one street dance party at a time.

The group used matching pink outfits, choreographed dance routines, and humor as tactics to draw attention. For instance, performing Janet Jackson’s Nasty in front of Chicago Police Department, and Outkast’s Hey Ya! at a pro-coice rally, and in the face of anti-abortion protestors.

So you want to organize a very large protest march? There's no one better to ask than Leslie Cagan. Leslie has helped organize some of the biggest marches in recent history. To name just a few:

• the 1967 March on the Pentagon
• the 1982 anti-nuclear protest in Central Park—then the largest anti-nuclear protest and largest political demonstration in American history
• the 1987 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights
• the 2003 march against the Iraq War
• the 2004 protest around the Republican National Convention
• and the People’s Climate March in 2014.

I interviewed Leslie in November 2015. Both Leslie and I have lightly edited the text below for clarity.