DNC protest group wins fight to erect stage, sound systems, portable toilets during rally and march
CHICAGO (CBS) – A group of pro-Palestinian activists planning a series of protest marches during the Democratic National Convention declared victory Friday after city officials agreed to allow them to set up a stage, sound systems, and portable toilets in a park near the United Center.
The Coalition to March on the DNC had been granted permits to march from Union Park to Park 578 and back during the convention, but originally were not allowed to put up any stages or platforms, sound equipment, or portable toilets.
Accusing the city of blindsiding them with the restrictions, organizers on Thursday said they planned to ask a federal judge for an injunction on Friday to stop the city from enforcing those restrictions, accusing the city of violating their First Amendment rights. The coalition also accused the city of imposing those restrictions in an attempt to silence their protest against Israel amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
"This is not an issue of safety or security — it's a content-based decision," said Hatem Abudayyeh, co-founder of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, "and a content-based decision is illegal, to say, 'We don't want you to speak because of what you are saying. We don't want you to speak because you're going to be talking about the liberation of Palestine.'"
By Friday morning, the group withdrew their motion for an injunction, writing in a court filing that they had received "certain assurances" from the city. A hearing that had been set for Friday was later canceled, and organizers announced the city had agreed to let them set up a stage, sound system, and seven portable toilets in Union Park throughout the DNC.
"The Law Department had to drop their unconstitutional denial of a sound system," Abudayyeh said in a statement. "They knew it wouldn't hold up in court, but they also knew that we have been organizing day and night to line up important supporters in Chicago who helped advocate for us too."
The city is expected to issue a formal permit letter by the end of the day, authorizing the coalition to set up the stage, sound system, and portable toilets on the first and last days of the convention on Monday and Thursday, when the group has planned rallies and marches.
"We can be out in the streets cheering loudly, and protesting loudly, and calling for a free Palestine loudly while [Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee] Kamala Harris is giving her acceptance speech," Abudayyeh said.
Abudayyeh credited the group's grassroots organizing with getting various activist leaders with relationships at City Hall to convince the Johnson administration to grant them permits for a stage, sound equipment, and toilets. Abudayyeh said Mayor Brandon Johnson called one of the leaders of the coalition after they were initially denied permits for stages, sound equipment, and portable toilets to assure them he would make sure their rights would be protected.
"The mayor had said from the very beginning that he supports the protest movement, that the protest movement is what brought him to City Hall," Abudayyeh said. "He has been an ally and a friend to us from day one. We knew that he supported us, our coalition, and these protests, and it's proof positive that he called one of the top leaders of the coalition directly on his cell phone, and said 'We're gonna make this happen.'"
In a statement confirming the deal with the protest groups, Johnson said he was "committed to upholding the diverse, multi-generational movements that brought me by exercising the right to protest and First Amendment rights."
"We are focused on collaborative solutions and have extended this approach to our convention preparation to balance the need for security with our commitment to free expression," Johnson said.
Johnson, a former Chicago Teachers Union who has frequently spoken about his background in grassroots organizing - including his role in a hunger strike that led to the reopening of Dyett High School in 2015 - has supported calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and cast the tiebreaking vote in the City Council in January on a resolution calling for a ceasefire.
Activists still seek a longer protest route during DNC
As pro-Palestinian activists prepare for their first march on Monday afternoon, the coalition said they would continue fighting for a longer protest march route than the city has allowed, as well as for more portable toilets at Union Park, along with medical tents, a press tent, and a tent for rally speakers.
Earlier this week, a federal judge turned down the protest group's bid to require the city to change their approved protest route during the DNC.
City Hall has approved a route that would begin in Union Park, and will head south on Ashland Avenue, west on Washington Boulevard, north on Hermitage Avenue, and west on Maypole Avenue to Park 578 – where many speeches are expected – and then to Damen Avenue, north to Lake Street, and east back to Union Park where more speeches are planned.
But the coalition said the city's proposed route is too winding and too short for the estimated crowd of up to 25,000 protesters. The protesters wand a longer protest route – around 2.4 miles – that would also take them closer to the United Center.
"The route is still woefully short," Abudayyeh said. "One-point-one miles is not long enough to accommodate thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people that we're going to have in the streets next week, and so we're going to continue to battle, continue to ask for this longer route."
The city has said it would be safer to stick to its approved route so that emergency vehicles can get by, and because barriers are going up. Workers have installed heavy iron fences to build the security perimeter outside the United Center and McCormick Place.
The protesters' preferred route would take them down a stretch of Washington Boulevard where security barriers are being installed, and U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood has said that allowing such a large protest so close to the security barrier would not be safe.
Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling has vowed police will protect protesters' First Amendment rights, but are also committed to preventing any potential violence.
"We will not allow people to come here and destroy this city," Snelling said on Monday.
Snelling also wanted people to know that the words "riots" and "protests" should not be used interchangeably.
"We're not going to allow you to riot. Protesting and rioting are two different things," Snelling said. "The moment that starts, we are going to intervene. I am not going to wait until out-of-control and then try to bring it back in."
"Poor People's Army" preparing to march for more support for the homeless
Meantime, another group of activists planning to march on the DNC, the Poor People's Army, also is preparing demonstrations in Chicago. The national group of self-organized poor and homeless people is seeking to bring awareness to the epidemic of homelessness and poverty.
"We just want to remind people that this is the United States of America, and we know that as poor people the last thing that we have is our voice," said Poor People's Army co-founder Cheri Honkala.
On Friday, they held non-violent civil obedience training.
For the past 20 years, the group has staged protests at both the Republican and Democratic national conventions, and they said their rallies all have been peaceful.
Several members of the Poor People's Army has spent the past two weeks marching from Milwaukee to Chicago after protesting at the RNC last month. On Saturday, they plan to set up an encampment in Humboldt Park, before making their way down to their protest route on Monday.
Their planned route, approved on a technicality when the city failed to respond to their application in time, would take them inside the Secret Service security perimeter outside the United Center, so it's unclear how close to the convention site they will actually march.