A coalition of anti-imperialist and progressive organizations planning to protest the Democratic National Convention next month says the route proposed for the march by the City of Chicago and the Secret Service is “inadequate” in allowing protesters to voice their demands.
The convention is set to take place on August 19-22. Speeches and other events will take place at the United Center, while daytime activities are set to happen at the McCormick Place Convention Center.
On Friday, the Secret Service and the city shared information on what streets would be restricted during the convention. Like the Republican National Convention, the Democratic National Convention will have two security zones surrounding the United Center — one “soft” zone, where vehicles will be allowed to pass through and passersby can walk around despite some security measures in place, and a “hard” zone where only credentialed delegates and media will be allowed in, with no cars whatsoever.
“We have worked closely with our partners at the Federal, state, and local levels to develop a comprehensive security plan that caters to the needs of the convention and simultaneously supports the lives of Chicagoans who rely on our services each day,” said Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
The city also released a map of an authorized march route for demonstrators, whose primary demand is for an end to the Democratic Party’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which has now killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health officials. (That number doesn’t include people buried under the rubble, deaths from Israel’s famine campaign, or deaths from the epidemics now raging across Gaza, which researchers estimate could put the true death toll at anywhere from 92,000 to 186,000 Palestinians.)
The dozens of organizations that will be protesting — calling themselves the Coalition to March on the DNC — will be demanding an embargo on weapons to Israel, an end to the U.S.’s illegal sanctions around the world, an end to mass incarceration and racist policing, and legalization for undocumented people in the U.S., among other progressive demands. A similar group marched against Republicans at their national convention in Milwaukee last month.
The approved protest route goes along Washington Blvd., near the United Center, but goes north on Hermitage Ave. before it can reach the northern border of the Democratic National Convention zones. In fact, the route, which only goes for about 1.4 miles and mainly runs along side streets, doesn’t touch any border of the convention and is several blocks away from the United Center.
“The route offered to us by the City’s Law Department is inadequate,” Hatem Abudayyeh, one of the spokespeople for the Coalition to March on the DNC, said in a press release that was shared with Truthout. “With the ongoing U.S.-funded genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza…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.”
“[The City] 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,” Abudayyeh added.
That proposed alternative would allow demonstrators to walk along the northern border of the convention while still being outside of both zones established by the Secret Service.
Some Chicago residents have also expressed skepticism about the city’s current plan.
“It’s going to be quite the headache because we just know that we ain’t going to be able to park in front of our house where we pay rent,” nearby resident Georgia Jones told the Chicago ABC News affiliate about the proposal.
Resident Terrance Evans also worried about his and other people’s ability to utilize services in the city, stating:
Because of some medical problems, I take the PACE bus. We have tenants in the building. We have a tenant in the building that has dialysis. We want to make sure we can still get the PACE bus, but we haven’t found out yet.
It’s possible the march route will change — after threatening to sue the City of Milwaukee earlier this year over its approval of an inadequate route, the Coalition to March on the RNC was successful in securing the right to march into the soft security zone that was established ahead of the convention.
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