Coalition to March on the DNC demands city recognize right to rally with stage and amplified sound

Chicago, IL – On the afternoon of Wednesday, August 14, five days before the Democratic National Convention, the city of Chicago slapped organizers of the Coalition to March on the DNC with permits saying they can assemble in Union Park on the condition that they have no sound amplification, stages, tents, or port-a-potties. This effectively denies them the ability to hold a rally.

Coalition members organized a press conference Thursday morning, a 100-person rally in the afternoon, and a national call-in to demand their right to rally on August 19 at Union Park.

 “Again, the city of Chicago has blindsided us and restricted our rights,” said Hatem Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the coalition, and national chair of one of its leading organizations, the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN). “We don’t believe that any of the previous restrictions are content-based, but this one clearly is. Someone doesn’t want us to talk about Palestine, about Genocide Joe and Killer Kamala’s support of genocide, and this is an egregious violation of our rights.”

The Coalition urged people to call Chicago Chief Operating Officer John Roberson to demand that the city recognize their right to have a sound system and sanitation for their rally.

“The organizers have done everything they can to make sure people are safe at this march, and now we need the city to do that,” 33rd Ward Alderwoman Rossana Rodríguez said at a press conference outside City Hall on Thursday morning.

Other alderpersons, Julia Ramirez of the 12th Ward and Byron Sigcho-Lopez of the 25th, also spoke about the need for the city to stop obstructing the protest. They were joined by veteran organizers in the Black liberation and immigrant rights movements.

“This is not 1968. We don’t have a ‘shoot to kill’ mayor,” said Cheryl Miller, health justice organizer of Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP). “I am calling on Mayor Johnson to not let the fears of the past cause the chaos he is trying to prevent,” Miller continued.

“We didn’t come here to beg for anything,” Frank Chapman, executive director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR) said at the end of the press conference. “We’re demanding that they recognize our right to speak!” 

100-plus people gathered outside City Hall on Thursday afternoon to make their demands again. Speakers included organizers from CAARPR, USPCN, Students for a Democratic Society, the Anti War Committee – Chicago, and others who have spent months organizing the marches on August 19 and 22. Organizers who had traveled from Minneapolis, Seattle and New Orleans also addressed the crowd. 

Speakers affirmed that the march on August 19 would take place in spite of the city’s attempts to silence protesters. 

“With over 200 organizations in the coalition and thousands and thousands of people gearing up to march, we will march. And we will have our demands heard, no matter what the city or the U.S. government says!” said USPCN organizer Rania Salem.

During the rally, the coalition also had a call with a federal judge and the city’s attorneys to address the injunction put forward by the Coalition against the city’s restrictions on their free speech. The city has until noon on Friday to respond, after which there will be an in-person hearing at the Dirksen Federal courthouse at 2:30 p.m.

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