[10] They promoted a wide range of narratives, including outright denial of any protests occurring,[11] portraying them as violent Bolshevik uprisings,[12][13] and claiming that Koreans were in need of the benevolent rule of Japan.

The Korean-American Korean National Association attempted to send Syngman Rhee and Henry Chung [ko] to the conference, but the U.S. government denied them permission to go.

[39][40][20] By early 1919, their ideas coalesced, and they also became angered by the rebuffing of the Korean representatives to the Paris Peace Conference, by the brutality of Japanese rule, and by the possibility that Gojong had been poisoned.

[42] In late 1918, leaders of the native Korean religion Cheondoism, including Kwŏn Tongjin [ko], O Se-chang, and Son Byong-hi, reached a consensus that nonviolent resistance and turning international public opinion against Japan would be effective in advocating for Korea's independence.

[46] They decided to schedule their protest for March 1, the day of Gojong's public funeral, in order to capitalize on the significant number of people congregating in Seoul.

Near the end of the document's reading, cheers of "long live Korean independence" (대한독립 만세) erupted continually from the crowd, and they filed out onto the main street Jongno for a public march.

[2] The protests were broadly supported across economic and religious spectrums, including groups such as merchants, noblemen, literati, kisaeng, laborers, monks, Christians, Cheondoists, Buddhists, students, and farmers.

A group of female students wrote a public letter entitled "From Korean School Girls" to world leaders that was reprinted in international newspapers.

[11] One female student of Ewha Haktang gave a testimony that was later submitted into the American Congressional Record: It was on the 5th of March that I [joined a] procession at the South Gate.

I was made to kneel down with my legs bound together, and each question and answer was accompanied alternately by blows to the face...[73]An April 12 cablegram, sent from Shanghai to the Korean National Association in San Francisco, read: Japan began massacring in Korea.

[70][78] An April 22, 1919 pamphlet by the Presbyterian Church in America read: [When] they put Korean women in the question box—this, mind you, is before they are condemned at all—they are stripped absolutely naked... From here they have to walk across an open court where they can be seen by any one who pleases...

[2][91][86] An article in the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture argues it is possible that the numbers are even higher, as Japanese authorities continued pursuing and arresting protestors for years afterwards.

[11][10] There are records of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs requesting that the United States and Germany stop their newspapers from publishing claims about the protests that it deemed to be rumors.

One of its foreign mission board secretaries wrote, "Mails and cables are censored and the World is kept in ignorance whilst Japan is posing as a civilized nation".

[5] Others publicly debated what was dubbed "the Japan–Korea problem" (Japanese: 日鮮問題, romanized: Nissen mondai), and presented a range of opinions on what caused the protests, how serious they were, and how to prevent future unrest.

[5][112] Public intellectual Sakuzō Yoshino published articles in Japanese and at least one in English, in which he described Japan's colonialism as a noble venture, but condemned the assimilation of and discrimination towards Koreans as causing humanitarian concerns.

[112][5] Journalist Tanzan Ishibashi, as part of his "Small Japan" ideology (小日本主義), reportedly welcomed the movement and saw it as signaling the end of colonial rule in Korea.

[120] In addition, while the colonial government had previously been more consistently dismissive towards Korean culture, it began conceding that Korea had some unique traditions worthy of protection and development.

Colonial expenditures doubled from 1919 to 1921, policies encouraged active management of Korean culture instead of passive punishment, and the police presence and intervention in Korea's economy increased.

[124][125] The scholar Brandon Palmer argued that even if the U.S. did publicly support Korean independence, circumstances still made it unlikely that Korea would be liberated as result of this.

[126] Leo A. Bergholz, American consul-general in Seoul, reportedly expressed some sympathy towards the Korean protestors and advocated for colonial reforms, but otherwise adopted a passive stance.

[2] One Yonhap News Agency reporter argued that a letter from an anonymous Korean student to U.S. President Wilson was possibly significant in influencing Chinese public opinion on the protests.

[13] Early on, British newspapers such as The Times and The Guardian,[g] based on information from Reuters,[h] described the movement as "riots" and the protestors as violent mobs that attacked authorities and burned down buildings.

[13] The English Church Mission in Korea reportedly attempted to maintain a middle ground position between what it viewed as Korean terrorism after the protests and the oppression of the colonial government.

[137] A response to a reader question in the April 2 issue of The Straits Times attempted to justify why Korea's sovereignty was not approved for discussion at the Paris Peace Conference.

At this time, our great and beloved leader Kim II Sung, who was eight years old, participated in the anti-Japanese demonstration and traveled to Bongťongdae Gate, which was about 30 li away.

[16] In British-occupied Egypt, students of Cairo University held a pro-independence protest amidst the 1919 Egyptian revolution, and cited the March First Movement as an inspiration.

For example, in China in the 1920s, the rivaling right-leaning Korean National Party [ko] and left-leaning KNRP made a point of hosting a joint ceremony to bridge their political divide and demonstrate unity to observers.

[160] Scholar Choe Seon-ung (최선웅) wrote that for the left-leaning Korean National Revolutionary Party in the 1930s, efforts were made to reduce the number of nationalist symbols in ceremonies, so as to promote proletarian internationalism.

[165]In 2018, President Moon Jae-in's administration established the Commission on the Centennial Anniversary of March 1st Independence Movement and the Korean Provisional Government (KPG) to celebrate these occasions.