In reporting about the events on October 5th, one local news source described the participants as a crowd of “passionate Chicagoans”. Around 1500 people came together to start the day of resistance with a rally at Grant Park. High schoolers came in smaller groupings from a variety of schools across the city and a few from the suburbs. Right around noon, about 70 students from Columbia College marched from their downtown Chicago campus to Grant Park, chanting “The World Can’t Wait- Drive Out the Bush Regime!” They were joined by smaller contingents of students from other universities, as well as by people from many walks of life—from the projects to affluent suburbs. The diversity of the crowd mirrored all groups of people who are affected by the policies of Bush and his administration, and the diversity of the speakers reflected this as well.
Speakers at the rally included Juan Torres of Gold Star Families for Peace, celebrated historian of the black diaspora Professor Timuel Black, Nick Egnatz of Vietnam Vets Against the War and Vets for Peace, and a very dramatic reading of the World Can’t Wait Call by Mike Nussbaum, Braden Moran, and Bruce Young- all currently appearing in Hamlet. Mars, that revolutionary sister, emceed the day, and Bernadine Dohrn spoke passionately about how there are three things that international humanitarian law condemns under all circumstances and without exception: slavery, genocide, and torture, and the Bush regime just legalized the latter, giving itself retroactive amnesty to boot. The finale at Grant Park was inspiring, as high school students crowded onto the stage and a new organizer from Columbia College made a passionate call to action to drive out the Bush regime.
The march itself was electric. Despite the City’s attempts to silence us and make us invisible, the people of Chicago were very spirited, and very loud, as we marched down Jackson Boulevard to Federal Plaza. We felt the power of taking to the streets to condemn the crimes being committed in our name, and the energy united our diversity. (A political and legal battle had been going on to secure a permit for a major march in Chicago, continuing right up to 11 AM on the morning of October 5th with a hearing in Federal Court. The judge was furious with the City’s intransigence and refused to rule that our suit had no merit, but we didn’t win the restraining order against the City we had sought. Not content with that, the Chicago Police Department continued efforts to derail us, even putting out a press release the evening of October 4th with the wrong time of WCW events the next day.)
Undeterred, people on the edges of the march were substantively trying to convince others to join with us. As an example, one professional man who’d come with his wife and young daughter was telling people, “Come on! It’s one day! They just legalized torture! You can’t sit on the sidelines!” The response was overwhelmingly positive, with frequent applause and some jumping in from the sidewalk. One college student with a bullhorn chanted, “Off of the sidewalk, into the street,” and “Join us, Join us” echoed off the buildings.
We came into Federal Plaza a full hour and a half earlier than planned, due to the last-minute change in schedule ordered by the judge. The stage crews, speakers and performers scrambled fast and creatively to pull a second rally together, despite police attempts to pull our sound permit. Many people stuck around and continued chanting together and some went out to flyer for the later rally.
As the stage crew hurried to connect up amplified sound, speakers came onto the stage from amongst the march participants, leading chants and speaking from their hearts on why they were there and why we must drive out the Bush regime. We had a woman who was kind enough to share the experiences of a young Iraq war veteran, who was not comfortable in sharing this himself with the crowd. Another young woman spoke of her brother, the only family she feels she has, who is over in Iraq. He had become suicidal and the military’s solution was to hand a bottle of anti-depressants and tell him to get back to his post. One woman with Military Families Speak Out whose niece is in Iraq said that just a few years ago, she had been very supportive of the war in Iraq and thanked people who had protested the war because this was what had helped to convince her and compel her to become active in trying to stop it. A few hundred stuck around all the way to the scheduled rally at 4:30, when many more joined us for the first time as they came from work.The speakers in Federal Plaza included Carlos Perez of the March 10th Movement, who drew the clear lines between the attacks on immigrants and the need to drive out this whole regime. A WCW member and 9/11 truth volunteer read a speech by the executive director of 911truth.org, who was herself delivering it in Kansas City. A dream of many came true as the Chain Gang mounted the stage: giant Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld puppets in the striped prison suits and chains the real ones so richly deserve. The crowd, which had grown again by now to upwards of 1000-1500 people, loved it.
The evening ended with live music, chanting and dancing. All kinds of discussions were raging all over Federal Plaza, especially on where to go from here to really bring the whole Bush program to a halt by driving the regime from power.
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