Outrage in Chicago Continues
December 22, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Chicago, 12/18/2015—Almost four weeks from the release of the video of the murder of Laquan McDonald, protests have continued—sometimes more than one a day. If the authorities thought that the anger and determination for an end to police terror had diminished, events on this date prove it still is burning bright.
A protest earlier in the day shut down the streets around Midway Airport. High school students walked out in protest of police brutality. Fenger High School was notorious in the past for bitter conflicts among the youth, but videos from December 18 show students marching in the street against police brutality after walking out (see The Police Murder of Laquan McDonald in Chicago and the Coverup—The Whole Damn System Is Guilty as Hell) .
Then, at 3:16 p.m., up to a thousand people of various nationalities and ages took to the streets of Chicago. Blogger Eugene “Geno” Stanley described the scene: “Maybe 1 hour into the revolt, and I looked around, and there were every type of happy, enthusiastic, angry, disgusted, and united people there is on this planet. I mean people of all races, social class, and cultures.” This protest was a called as “City Wide Walkout Part II” and organized as a follow-up to the major protest 9 days earlier.
As the rally started, stacks of picket signs with “Stop Police Terror, Which Side Are You On,” signed by revcom.us, and “There Is No Justice From the Department of IN-Justice”, signed by the Stop Mass Incarceration Network, were widely taken up as were mounted stolen lives posters. Two stolen lives banners made a presence through the night. As the march started, protesters filled the streets of the Chicago Loop, marched around City Hall, up Michigan Avenue into the Magnificent Mile shopping district and snaked around neighborhood streets in Chicago’s Gold Coast to Astor Street—a street of mansions where some of Chicago’s wealthiest live.
Throughout the protest, which a determined core of up to 100 people carried on for five and a half hours, major streets were shut down. Some drivers, stuck at intersections, honked their horns in time to the chants and held up their fists. DNA Info showed a picture of a cab driver, caught by a street blockade, displaying his own “Rahm must go” sign.
Occupying the street in front of the Water Tower place, as well as at other gathering points, different programs were put forward. One of the youth who initiated the day's protest called for people to focus on elections. In contrast a youth from the Revolution Club agitated about the crimes of the system starting with police brutality and murder but going beyond that to address all of the 5 Stops. When he asked “who here believes in revolution?” many in the crowd cheered and then joined in the chant “How do we get out of this mess? Revolution—Nothing Less!”
At one point in the protest, after police had arrested three protesters, the crowd surrounded the police van in which the protesters were held, sitting down in the street all around it and blocking it from moving. Along with “16 Shots and a cover up” (the signature chant of the movement) people chanted “Put Rahm in the paddy wagon—let the people free." After negotiations and only when the police commander agreed to give each arrested protester only a traffic ticket, was the police van allowed to move and the march continued.
The ongoing struggle sparked by the release of the video showing the brutal police murder of Laquan McDonald must be part of building a movement for revolution which rids the world of that criminal, inhuman system once and for all. See revcom.us for an in-depth analysis.
Major protests are planned for Christmas Eve to, again, shut down the Magnificent Mile high-end shopping district.
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