CHICAGO, Ill. (Capitol News Illinois) – Protestors in Chicago this week have shut down streets, broken through security fencing, clashed with police and interrupted events associated with the Democratic National Convention.
Rallies and marches have focused mainly on the war in Gaza and reproductive health care. Most protestors remained peaceful, but a protest Tuesday evening ended in a clash with law enforcement.
A group of protestors with the self-described “militant anti-imperialist movement” known as Behind Enemy Lines gathered outside the Israeli consulate, making pro-Palestinian demands.
Police at that event – which, unlike other protests, did not have a permit – arrested more than 50 people, including three journalists, according to Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling.
Otherwise, the largely peaceful protests had proven minimally disruptive to the convention. Smaller demonstrations interrupted events welcoming delegates earlier in the week. Some protestors even unfurled a banner inside the United Center during President Joe Biden’s Monday speech.
During that keynote address, Biden mentioned the protestors who had been gathering mostly peacefully up to that point.
“Those protesters out in the street, they have a point,” Biden, who has been heavily criticized by pro-Palestinian activists, said Monday. “A lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides.”
Pro-Palestine protests were, at times, met with smaller pro-Israel counter-protests.
Demonstrations began on Sunday, with the first permitted march heading down Chicago’s famous Michigan Avenue. The crowd of thousands remained largely peaceful as it marched from the Chicago River to the south end of Grant Park.
Marchers there demanded politicians protect abortion access and reduce racial and ethnic disparities in maternal and child health. The group’s online manifesto also argues that “Palestinian liberation is reproductive justice.”
A march on Monday, the first official day of the DNC drew about 3,500 people, according to Chicago police, far short of the group’s goal of having tens of thousands of marchers and smaller than some other pro-Palestinian protests that occurred in Chicago over the past year.
Kobi Guillory, a science teacher in Chicago, co-chaired the coalition that organized protests on Monday.
“We have to fight for a better world because these politicians will never, ever give us anything out of the goodness of their hearts,” he said during a Monday rally.
While marchers and demonstrators came from across the country, many of the groups involved in the protests are either based in or primarily work in the city.
“When I was a young boy immigrating to the U.S., I was told if I worked hard enough I can achieve the American dream. Who here still believes that? I don’t!” Glo Choi said onstage at the rally. “The same forces that divided my home, Korea, are the same ones occupying Palestine.”
Choi is an organizer at the HANA Center, a community organization on Chicago’s North Side that provides classes and counseling to recent immigrants from Korea and other Asian countries.
“I remember being asked what does citizenship, what does legalization mean to me?” Choi said. “It doesn’t mean being part of this unjust system, it means demanding more each and every day.”
Monday’s protest drew a smaller counter-protest of a few dozen people who carried Israeli flags and marched around the park where pro-Palestinian activists were rallying. That group was made up mostly of Christians and Jewish people who said they wanted to represent a different view than those at the main protest.
“We know that there was going to be a lot of people here supporting what Hamas is doing in the Middle East,” said counter-protestor Margaret Fernandez. “So we’re just here to show that Christians do stand with Israel and there are more people that stand with us in this issue, in this country.”
More protests and demonstrations have been planned for the rest of the week, including a second event planned by the Coalition to March on the DNC, the same group that planned events on Monday.
Police response
Protests are common at national party conventions and Chicago is no stranger to large demonstrations. In the lead-up to this week, many compared this year’s convention to the 1968 DNC, where police beat protestors while being filmed. Activists at that convention chanted “the whole world is watching.”
Protestors have echoed that chant this week during arguments with police.
At Sunday’s protest, tensions rose between police and protestors near the Hilton Chicago, the site of a violent brawl between police and protestors in 1968. March organizers and police quickly deescalated the situation.
Two people were arrested Sunday in a separate incident and charged with misdemeanor property damage and resisting arrest, according to the city.
On Monday, however, tensions rose further. After the march arrived at the small park designated for protests of the DNC, a small group of protestors knocked down part of the outer perimeter of DNC security fencing.
Following that, police began making arrests and protestors returned to Union Park, where the march began.
There, some people erected about a half dozen tents to form an encampment. After protestors initially refused to leave, Chicago police issued two “dispersal orders” as they called in dozens of officers in riot gear and hundreds more uniformed officers. The protestors quickly took down the tents and left the scene.
Throughout Monday’s protests, police arrested 13 people on charges ranging from trespass to aggravated battery of a peace officer, according to the city.
Guillory, who was in another section of the park cleaning up material from the rally hours earlier as riot police arrived, said that while he would never condemn “protesting for what is just,” his group was separate from whoever constructed the tents.
“The coalition doesn’t have the capacity to do the sort of tactics that other people are doing,” Guillory said. “We planned a family-friendly march and that’s what we executed.”
At a news conference Tuesday, Chicago police representatives and other city officials condemned violence but encouraged those interested to peacefully protest.
“We want people to protest and protest peacefully. We welcome that and we invite that,” Chicago Deputy Mayor Garien Gatewood said at the news conference Tuesday. “But what we won’t have is people who violate that, people who bring violence and people who create terror. We won’t allow that, we’ve never allowed that and we won’t start today.”
Hours later, the Behind Enemy Lines protest would yield dozens of arrests.
The Chicago Police Department on Wednesday said 56 people were arrested on Tuesday. Snelling said earlier in the day that at least 22 of those arrestees were from out of state.
Behind Enemy Lines released a statement Wednesday morning denouncing Chicago police and the DNC, which the group said “represents children ripped to shreds by US-made bombs.”
“The reality is that every arrest, every bit of brutality toward protesters, and every person slammed against the concrete falls squarely on Brandon Johnson and his thugs in the CPD,” read the statement.
Snelling on Wednesday denounced the demonstration, saying that many of its organizers were from out of town and reiterating that his department wouldn’t tolerate violence.
(Reporting by Andrew Adams, Capitol News Illinois)
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of print and broadcast outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.
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