I am not sure why you think the general public doesn't know about these protests. They had popular acclaim on news channels while they were happening.

Sure, perhaps people have forgotten about a particular march especially if they do not consider it relevant to their lives, or a wider movement but at the time people heard about what was going on.

Everyone knows that they happened; no one knows their scale, no one remembers them for that reason.

(In contrast, consider the infamous Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, which was smaller.)