Above photo: The United Center in Chicago is seen March 5, 2024. The Democratic convention is slated to be held at the United Center from Aug. 19-22. E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune.
Coalition Demands March On Washington Blvd.
Chicago, IL – On July 25, the U.S. Secret Service laid out maps for its security perimeter at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in August. In response, Hatem Abudayyeh, one of the spokespeople for the Coalition to March on the DNC, said, “Now that the perimeter is finalized, we still demand that the city of Chicago must provide a march route for tens of thousands of people who will be protesting the convention on the week of August 19.”
Abudayyeh continued, “The route offered to us by the city’s Law Department is inadequate. With the ongoing U.S.-funded genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, which has already killed 40,000 people, and all the other grievances that people have with the Democrats in DC, the city knows that it can’t accommodate all the protesters that will be here if it puts us on side streets and insists on a one-mile-long route.”
Organizers know that the crowd will stretch out over at least two miles, and the city’s route will cause bottlenecks and other problems that are easily resolved.
“The ball is in the city’s court,” concluded Abudayyeh. “It just needs to give us a longer route with wider streets, that is, all the way up Washington Boulevard, and we’ll immediately sign on the dotted line.”
In addition, the Coalition is concerned about DNC security plans after the experience of the March on the RNC in Milwaukee, when a Black man, Samuel Sharpe, Jr., was killed by a cop from Columbus, Ohio. The Coalition to March on the DNC is demanding that all officers from outside Chicago must be limited to duties inside the security perimeter and must stay out of public parks.
The Coalition will also launch a campaign this week to ask supporters to call the city of Chicago Law Department and urge Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry to grant the longer march route on Washington Boulevard.