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CHICAGO (CN) — Protests against the Democratic National Convention began in earnest over the weekend and on Monday, kicking off what’s expected to be a week of rallies and marches with thousands of participants.
The LGBTQ and reproductive rights group Bodies Outside of Unjust Laws spearheaded the first major protest on Sunday evening, leading hundreds in a peaceful march down Chicago’s historic Michigan Avenue. The group criticizes both major parties but criticizes Democrats in particular for a failure to codify abortion rights nationwide — and for a lack of strong response to GOP-led attacks on transgender rights.
“There should be national legislation. We shouldn’t have to fight this battle state by state,” Linda Loew, an organizer with the rights group, told Courthouse News on Sunday.
“The fact is we have had 50 years since Roe v. Wade , and many of those were Democratic administrations,” Loew added on the issue of abortion access.
The mayor and police chief both said the city was prepared for the convention and the protests that come along with it.
“The city of Chicago is really good at things like this,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said at a news conference. “We are ready.”
Police Superintendent Larry Snelling praised the department’s response to Sunday’s protests and said he hoped the rest of the week would go as smoothly.
“Listen, it’s this simple. The Chicago Police Department is here to protect everyone in this city,” Snelling said. “What we will not tolerate is intimidation. We we will not tolerate violence.”
Bodies Outside stands in coalition with other groups planning to protest the DNC this week, each hoping to bring attention to issues ranging from homelessness to LGBTQ protections to increased labor rights for workers. One issue unites the groups above all others — opposition to U.S. policy on Israel.
The Coalition to March on the DNC, representing multiple Palestinian solidarity organizations, held their own rally Monday morning near the city’s United Center. The facility is hosting many of the convention’s events, and demonstrations are expected nearby every day this week.
“I would say with a heartfelt thanks they have good intentions to help the Jewish people,” a Jewish man named Nathum, who came from Indiana to attend the Monday protest, said of the Democrats. “But it’s misguided good intentions. If they want to help the Jewish people, it would be to help stop the colonization of the state of the Zionists, because that is the root cause of the conflict.”
The Chicago area is home to the largest Palestinian-American community in the U.S., some descended from people scattered in the 1948 Nakba — the displacement of more than 700,000 Palestinians from what is now Israel that accompanied the nation’s founding. Many Palestinians in the city, and their allies among the protest movement, blame Democrats for supporting what they see as ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
“I can’t stand when people say, ‘I have to vote for the lesser evil.’ There is no lesser evil,” one lifelong Chicagoan whose grandfather was displaced in the Nakba said at a community protest on Saturday. “It’s a horrible thing to see the genocide of my people livestreamed in 4K every day … . I can do nothing except speak out.”
Since Oct. 7, 2023, when the militant wing of Gaza’s leading political party, Hamas, launched an attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people and took about 240 hostage, Israeli strikes have killed over 40,000 people in Gaza.
An international coalition led by South Africa has [accused Israel of pursuing a genocide against Palestinians](https://www.courthousenews.com/south-africa-accuses-israel-of-genocide-in-gaza-at-top-un-court/(opens in a new tab)), a charge the International Court of Justice found this January was “plausible” in certain aspects. In an advisory opinion in July, the court found Israel had violated the Fourth Geneva Convention in occupied Palestinian territories prior to this war.
The Biden administration has continued to offer support to Israel despite an increasing willingness to criticize Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Last week, the State Department announced the approval of an additional $20 billion in arm sales to Israel, following the release of $3.5 billion in military funds earlier this month.
Groups like Bodies Outside connect the U.S. funding of Israel to domestic issues around policing, education, labor and health care.
“When we provide billions on a regular basis to continue the bombing by Israel over Palestinians, those same funds are not going to the services we need at home,” Loew said. “There is a complete connection between what is going on in Gaza and what is happening in this country.”
One speaker at Sunday’s protest directly addressed Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, saying her vote in November depended on Harris calling for an arms embargo on Israel. Another lambasted politicians for what she said was a hypocritical stance on health care at home versus in Gaza.
“I know what I do every day as a nurse, and I see what has happened — hospitals, doctors, nurses, patients and their health care infrastructure has been shattered beyond recognition. I have no words for that, it makes me heartsick,” local National Nurses United union steward Elizabeth Lalasz said at the Sunday protest. “There’s no way to mince words: The Democrats are to blame.”
The protests have drawn attendees from across the country, with March on the DNC spokesperson Hatem Abudayyeh saying he expects “tens of thousands” of people to arrive over the course of the week.
One protest attendee who spoke to Courthouse News, going by Willow, came from Massachusetts. A member of the Service Workers International Union, she is part of a rank-and-file labor contingent who oppose their unions’ official support of Harris’ candidacy.
“I think that working people are rightfully horrified by what’s happening,” Willow said. “And simultaneously as billions and billions and billions are being poured into this war, many working people don’t have health care, many people are living paycheck to paycheck.”
Though united in cause, not every group or individual protesting the DNC agrees on tactics. Bodies Outside fought Chicago in federal court to win a permit for their peaceful march on Sunday, as did multiple other groups planning rallies and marches near convention spaces. More militant groups, like the organization Behind Enemy Lines, believe more forceful tactics are necessary.
“Even as the genocidal criminals in the Democratic party prepare to invade Chicago, the March on the DNC Coalition promises to deliver a safe, family-friendly protest, and has spent months embarrassing itself by begging the city for a permit,” the group, which calls itself anti-imperialist, wrote on its website last week.
Behind Enemy Lines has hosted community “speakouts” in several working-class neighborhoods, urging local residents to publicly denounce the Democrats’ support for Israel and to escalate protests against what they say are war crimes. This week the group distributed flyers calling for protests in front of the city’s Israeli consulate. The flyers urge attendees to “make it great like 68,” referencing when protesters against the Vietnam War clashed with Chicago police at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
“If they think they’re welcome here, they’re fucking wrong,” Behind Enemy Lines member Zachary Kam told Courthouse News.
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