Activists fighting for permits to protest closer to DNC in Chicago
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Six months out from the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, attention is turning to how the city plans to handle thousands of activists planning to state protests during the four-day event.
Activists wanted to set up a protest in Union Park, just a few blocks from United Center, which will be the DNC's convention hall, but the city rejected their request for a permit, instead telling them to protest at the south end of Grant Park, four miles away.
"Who's really in charge of denying this to us? It's three agencies. It's the Secret Service, it's the Department of Homeland Security, and it's the FBI, and this is what they do," said Joe Iosbaker, with the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.
The Chicago Department of Transportation denied their permit application, saying "sufficient city resources are not available to mitigate the traffic disruption that would be caused" by holding the protest at Union Park.
"We're not asking. We're demanding what we fairly deserve," said Maggie Lugo, with the Federation of Michoacán Clubs in Illinois.
The group known as The Coalition to March on the DNC is made up of several groups with different focal points – from Palestinian rights to protecting the rights of working mothers.
In 2012, some of the same activist groups were part of the protests at the NATO Summit in Chicago. While some of those protests turned violent, the coalition said back then the city was more accommodating on where they could protest.
"The legal language on which these have been settled in court is protesting within sight and sound; and on the corner of Cermak and Michigan, we could see the hotel where they were meeting," Iosbaker said.
With the Grant Park location, protesters they would be out of sight and sound range of the convention and its attendees at the United Center, as well as daytime meetings at McCormick Place, and the official DNC hotels near McCormick Place.
City officials did not immediately respond when asked if they are open to moving protesters closer to the DNC sites.
The ACLU of Illinois said groups should be within sight and sound of each other. The groups that are part of the collective protest effort said they are appealing the city's decision, and are confident that by this summer they won't be kept four miles away.
"They're going to give us that permit, because the power of the people is greater than the people in power. We will win," Iosbaker said.