Thousands of people marched in Los Angeles on Sunday in support of victims of sexual assault and harassment, inspired by a social media campaign that has exposed the extent of such abuse in everyday life.

The #MeToo march along Sunset Boulevard was due to culminate in a rally on on Sunday night and follows a relentless series of accusations by men and women who say they were victimised by high-powered figures in the entertainment industry.

Tarana Burke, an activist who led Sunday’s march, created the #MeToo campaign as a grassroots movement to reach sexual assault victims in underprivileged communities.

“For every Harvey Weinstein, there’s a hundred more men in the neighbourhood who are doing the exact same thing,” Burke said. “The conversation around harassment in Hollywood will broaden to include other industries if we force it to. It’s not going to do it on its own.”

Here are the #MeToo demonstrators marching to Hollywood and Highland a bit ago. pic.twitter.com/edhR9gnbfq — Brenda Gazzar (@bgazzar) November 12, 2017

The march began in the heart of Hollywood, near the entrance to the Dolby Theater where the Academy Awards take place, and proceeded for a mile to the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Cole where a podium was set up for the rally of speeches from people including Harvey Weinstein accuser Lauren Sivan and Oscar-winning producer Cathy Schulman.



As they marched, the crowd chanted “Not in pots, not in plants, keep your junk inside your pants,” before moving on to: “Harvey Weinstein is a joke, women workers just got woke.”

Other chants included, “Survivors united, we’ll never be divided” and “Whatever we wear, wherever we go, ‘yes’ means ‘yes’ and ‘no’ means ‘no’.”

One marcher, Nancy Allen, a 52-year-old woman from Los Angeles, carried a sign that read, “I was 7”.

“We’ve been silent too long,” Allen said. “A lot of people have kept this inside us for years and years.”

Weinstein, the actor Kevin Spacey and the comedian Louis CK are among the most prominent people to have been accused of sexual harassment.

The #MeToo social media movement began after a call to action by the actor Alyssa Milano, one of Weinstein’s most vocal critics, who wrote: “If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too’ as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.”

Within days, millions of women and some men used Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to disclose the harassment and abuse they had faced in their own lives.

Facebook said that within 24 hours of it launching, 4.7 million people around the world had engaged in the #metoo conversation, with more than 12m posts, comments and reactions.

The New York Times reported in October that Weinstein, 65, had agreed eight previously undisclosed settlements with women who accused him of sexual harassment and unwanted physical contact. The New Yorker reported that 13 women had claimed that Weinstein sexually harassed or assaulted them.

Allegations against Weinstein have snowballed since the publication of the original stories. He has denied all accusations of non-consensual sex.

Victims of sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual abuse and their supporters protest during a #MeToo march in Hollywood, California. Photograph: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

Last month, Spacey apologised to the actor Anthony Rapp, who accused him of trying to seduce him in 1986 when Rapp was 14. Spacey’s representatives later said he was seeking treatment.



As other allegations followed, Spacey has lost roles, and is being cut out of Ridley Scott’s forthcoming thriller All the Money in the World, which is being re-shot with Christopher Plummer in Spacey’s role. Spacey has not commented further on the allegations against him.

Five women detailed sexual misconduct accusations against the Emmy-winning comedian Louis CK in the New York Times last week. He admitted the misconduct in a statement on Friday and apologised.

On Saturday, the Star Trek actor George Takei and the Jaws star Richard Dreyfuss both responded to allegations against them. Takei denied groping a young actor in Los Angeles in 1981. Dreyfuss said he did not expose himself to a writer in 1987.