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Glenn Beck kicked off Monday’s radio show by thanking the many attendees at Saturday’s “Restoring Honor” rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial — at least 500,000 by his count. Glenn Beck said he’s “still waiting on the real number” and plans to look closely during his 5 p.m. Fox News show at photos of the large crowd assembled on the National Mall. Glenn Beck Rally Attendance.

The Glenn Beck rally — which took place on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the memorial — drew a good deal of controversy, with civil rights leaders holding a countermarch. But the event largely kept free of overt political references, as Glenn Beck (a longtime scourge of the Obama White House) had pledged it would. It stressed religious themes, together with celebrations of noncontroversial virtues such as charity and national service.

Even though Glenn Beck is still tabulating a crowd estimate, it can be expected to be significantly higher than the number CBS News reported over the weekend: 87,000.

Glenn Beck Rally Attracts Estimated 87000

An estimated 87,000 people attended a rally organized by talk-radio host and Fox News commentator Glenn Beck Saturday in Washington, according to a crowd estimate commissioned by CBS News.

The company AirPhotosLive based the attendance on aerial pictures it took over the rally, which stretched from in front of the Lincoln Memorial along the Reflecting Pool to the Washington Monument. Beck and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin spoke at the rally.

Beck, who predicted that at least 100,000 people would show up, opened his comments with a joke: “I have just gotten word from the media that there is over 1,000 people here today.”

AirPhotosLive gave its estimate a margin of error of 9,000, meaning between 78,000 and 96,000 people attended the rally. The photos used to make the estimate were taken at noon Saturday, which is when the company estimated was the rally’s high point.

Glenn Beck Rally organizers had a permit for crowd of 300,000. Crowd estimates used to be provided by the National Park Service, but the agency stopped counting crowds in 1997 after being accused of underestimating the size of the Million Man March in 1995.

Glenn Beck rally underway at Lincoln Memorial

‘America today begins to turn back to God,’ the cable commentator tells a crowd of conservatives as he kicks off a rally on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther KingÂ’s ‘I Have a Dream”speech. Glenn Beck Rally Attendance.

Reporting from Washington — Cable commentator Glenn Beck kicked off a major rally of conservative activists at the Lincoln Memorial Saturday, in what he billed as a non-partisan event that features former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and other speakers.

Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally is taking place on the 47th anniversary of civil rights leader Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and at the same spot on the National Mall, on the steps of the memorial.

Beck has said the rally would “reclaim the civil rights movement” and greeted the thousands gathered along the Mall with soaring predictions.

“America today begins to turn back to God,” he said.

Attendees were encouraged not to bring political signs and flyers. Skeptical Democrats have countered that the event is “blatantly political.” Many in the crowd wore shirts and hats in the colors of the American flag.

Falling on the anniversary King’s famed speech at the same location, the event has drawn especially strong criticism from civil rights leaders aligned with Democrats. Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, the NAACP and other groups were to lead a “Reclaim The Dream” counter rally and march to the mall.

“In ’63, they went to Washington for a strong national government to protect civil rights,” Sharpton said in an interview earlier this week. “He and Palin are going there for a weak national government and to advocate state rights.”

Glenn Beck previewed Saturday’s event Friday night to an audience at the Kennedy Center and thousands of supporters watching on line. “I’m convinced that not just this event, but this time period is going to be remembered as the beginning of the great awakening in America,” he said.

Glenn Beck told the estimated 87,000 people at his rally Saturday that “America today begins to turn back to God.”

But the Fox News host’s preaching may have escaped some attendees.

A video of encounters with rally goers at “Restoring Honor” captured political views and comments that sound nothing like the words of Rev. Martin Luther King, who spoke from the same spot as Beck did, 47 years ago today.

While angry protest signs that have come to characterize tea party events were mostly absent from Saturday’s rally (Beck asked attendees to leave the signs at home), many people wore their political hearts on their sleeves.

The video, put together by the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, shows rally goers weighing in on President Obama, “liberals,” the NRA’s support of gun rights for individuals on a federal terrorist watch list, and illegal immigration.

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