MILWAUKEE—The Saturday evening before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, hundreds of locals gathered on the lively Lake Michigan waterfront to enjoy the weather, camaraderie, and beach volleyball courts.
By Sunday morning, law enforcement from around the country, on foot, bike, and horseback, patrolled in constant waves. Secret Service fencing, the perimeters of which were expanded at the last minute, sliced through downtown with intimidating security checkpoints.
The night before the March on the RNC, Students for Democratic Society’s national delegates met in Washington Park for a communal, last-minute event of celebrating an SDS member’s birthday—and ultimately, to confirm their plans one last time. They had often chanted in press conferences: “On July 15th, where will we be? In sight and sound of the RNC.”
The next morning, blocks away from the arena hosting the event and its VIPs, hundreds of organizers arrived at Red Arrow Park.
Omar Flores, Co-Chair of the Coalition to March on the RNC and lifelong Wisconsinite, checked in with participants, organizers, and media with palpable optimistic energy.
“I’m feeling, outside of the heat, extremely good,” he told us. “This is a product of two years of work. This didn’t happen overnight. It feels surreal to finally be at this point. I’m happy, I’m proud of everyone.”
A member of the Milwaukee City Attorney’s Office was present to observe, as part of a last-minute handshake agreement between the coalition and the city finalizing the route and safety parameters.
“There were some doubts coming into this from folks in Milwaukee that the March is very dangerous, that we shouldn’t do it, and we always countered that narrative,” Flores reiterated. “We know how to host a family friendly march. We’ve fought for that for two years.”
When prompted for comment on the arrival of former President Donald Trump to his native Milwaukee, he chuckled lightheartedly. “Uh, get the hell out?”
Many of the attendees at the March were young activists and organizers from across the country, excited to demonstrate in close proximity to those in power and the international media flocking to cover them. In the more shady corners of the park, lifelong Wisconsinites of older generations — especially women — showed up to observe in stoic support.
“The people that follow him choose to ignore the unending dialogue that Donald Trump uses to speak to the world in lies, and hypocrisy, and cruelness, and meanness,” one woman from Madison told us, holding a sign depicting Trump with the declaration: Not in Wisconsin! “It’s just not who I am. It’s not who I want our culture, our society to be.”
On one corner of Red Arrow Park, counter-protestors blared through megaphones that women deserve to be raped and Palestinians deserve to be starved. Coalition safety marshals, trained in de-escalation, kept the focus on the organizers and their event by encouraging participants to not engage. Organizers silently stepped between any brewing confrontation between sides, and ushered their participants away from signs and shirts reading Abortion is Domestic Violence and BLM Rent-A-Riot.
As the March commenced towards their goal—”sight and sound of the RNC”—Alan Chavoya and Omar stayed near the front, directing the route, coordinating with colleagues, and scanning for potential conflicts. Participants and organizers chanted in support of the Coalition’s five points of unity — listing specific support for Palestine, reproductive rights, and immigration — but those who marched were there to support a range of progressive causes.
Liz Rathburn, President of Students for Democratic Society’s chapter at the University of Illinois Chicago, reiterated an SDS saying that carried into the demonstration: ‘Unity of Action, Not of Ideas.’
“We want to create something that’ll last and that will provide structure to whatever the next upsurge is,” Rathburn told us. “Whether it’s still Palestine, in Asia, Eastern Europe… wherever, we’re going to oppose war, militarism, [and] U.S. crimes against humanity, whatever they are.”
Coleen Rowley, a member of the Minnesota-based group Women Against Military Madness, told us anti-war activism is pro-America activism. “War has all these negative consequences people don’t realize. It’s called Blowback. That’s the CIA term. Now, the violence that we’re seeing, even the mass shootings, it’s all part of war… It’s saying to our people, ‘war is our answer’. And whenever we have a problem in our country, we say war is our answer,” she told us.
“We have an epidemic of mass violence now, the latest being the Trump thing, but it’s far, far worse than that, and nobody should be surprised. How can you be surprised when every night on the news, there’s a mass shooting somewhere? A church, a school, a mall, a public place, a restaurant. People don’t understand, that is because of the 22-23 years of perpetual war. We just say ‘stop the war,’ and people don’t know why it’s to their advantage to stop the war. It’s not just about the people in foreign countries, it’s about us.”
(Alan Chavoya leading the March on the RNC.)
Students and organizers, after the successful two-hour march, gathered at Zao MKE Church in Milwaukee to eat, drink, and celebrate the culmination of their two-year effort.
“We showed why this is an important issue and over the last couple of weeks, it’s become more pertinent to not just the media but to people all over the country,” said Audari Tamayo, co-chair University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee SDS.
The 150-200 people assembly, led by Freedom Road Socialist Organization, welcomed student factions from Tampa, Denver, and Chicago, to name a few.
“Young people have no shortage of reasons to not take the streets when the state of our country’s been in decline,” Tamayo told us about the activism of his generation. “The war machine has done nothing but grow and with that, our movement… I think as young people, we’re tired of living in the old way. They can’t wipe those images from our heads. We’re here to take our futures back.”
Students for Democratic Society is most famous for their previous iteration’s efforts against the Vietnam War, a historical anecdote that often invites comparisons to today’s youth organizing in support of Palestine. Tamayo points out that, while Vietnam was the first war Americans could watch on television, today’s access to images of war is even more decentralized.
“These atrocities are live-streamed through our phone,” he said. “That’s something that wasn’t available to activists 50-60 years ago. There’s no mistake, the truth is out there. It’s obvious who’s doing what and for what reasons. I think the facade is off.”
Youth activism has gained traction this year, in large part, due to university encampments in protest of U.S. aid to Israel and support of Palestinian civilians. While the March on the RNC and DNC has been helmed by Palestinian resistance, polls undermine media coverage depicting the youth as single-issue voters, particularly in Wisconsin.
A Harvard Youth Poll interviewing 18-29 year-olds shows that respondents rank other issues as more important to them. In a list ranking most to least importance, the Israel/Hamas war ranks 15th out of 16 issues; with inflation, healthcare, and housing taking the top three spots.
American voters under 30 are far from a homogenous group of anti-war progressives. While the studies tell us this, we also experienced it. Young men and women volunteered for and attended the RNC. They marched with anti-abortion activists.
While doing reporting work less than a block from Fiserv Forum, one young woman wearing a Make America Great Again hat began to physically assault several protestors and journalists, including ourselves. Notably, dozens of the police officers shuttled in from around the country under Governor Evers’s Executive Order witnessed this behavior and did not intervene.
The influx of law enforcement into Milwaukee last week did not do much to prevent scuffles and altercations between attendees and protestors. In fact, it resulted in the police killing a homeless man about a mile outside the Secret Service security perimeter, according to Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman in a press conference Tuesday.
The incident took place near an established homeless encampment of around 50 people, on the second day of the RNC (the day the Convention thematically dedicated to Law and Order). Witnesses and police report that 43-year old Samuel Sharpe Jr., who had mental challenges, had gotten into an altercation with another member of the camp. Five of the 13 Ohio police officers, seeing Sharpe’s knife, commanded him to put it down. Sharpe refused and the officers opened fire at the Milwaukee veteran.
A group of teenagers playing basketball at the nearby park reportedly said the police started firing within 20 seconds of arriving at the scene. Body camera footage released Tuesday evening shows the huddle of officers conversing when one of them notices the fight and that one of the men is holding a knife. Just 14 seconds later, the first shot is fired.
When we met with Omar Flores on Friday morning to discuss the aftermath of the week, Sam Sharpe’s death weighed heavily on his mind.
“Obviously, we at no moment fell for it, but these were supposed peacekeepers—a dialogue team, from Columbus, Ohio, that was at our protest trying to be officer-friendly,” Flores told us, visibly upset. A ten-year veteran of organizing for justice in police crimes, he told us himself and his colleagues in the coalition were crushed by the shooting, and for Sharpe’s family they’d been in contact with. “The work just continues. The RNC left, but we’re still going to be dealing with the impacts here.”
When we asked about the mental state of the organizers, Flores reiterated something he’d told us about Milwaukee activists from the very beginning, and something we observed all throughout the week.
“We always say, we keep us safe. That applies to protests, and it applies to emotional turmoil.”
Milwaukee experienced a tense clash of joyful community, stunned grief, anger, hope, kindness, and cruelty last week. The feeling inside Fiserv Forum—gratitude, passion, optimistic unity, and pride in the community gathered—was eerily congruent to the sentiment within the very coalition protesting against it.
As preparations turn to the Coalition to March on the DNC in Chicago next month, one thing the organizers hope to improve from Milwaukee is emphasizing their event as safe and welcoming for children.
“At mass national marches like this, there’s almost always a really large number of kids. You know, people like to bring their kids out to this because it gives them something to remember,” People didn’t bring their kids to the RNC because they’re scared,” Rathburn said to us.
“We’ve consistently talked about safety being one of, essentially highest, priorities of the march… There are going to be over 400 marshals for this march, hundreds of volunteers helping to make sure everyone has water, sunscreen, and when they need it, medical attention. There’s going to be a child-caring area.”
The organizers have made it a point that, while some present attitudes parallel those of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago protests, the outcome will be different.
Rathburn said, “What we can learn from ‘68 is making sure that we try to use every possible route to get what we need to make this a safe protest. We recognize that there is going to be a PR hurdle there in terms of making sure that folks feel safe, that folks are able to be at the DNC and protest it without worrying that they’re gonna end up in a history book with their head cracked open.”
Tamayo, as he took in the room of exhausted, relieved, and proud organizers, feels hopeful.
“I trust the people in this room,” he told us. “I trust the people on the streets today. I trust the people that are willing to fight for a better society. A lot of us are sub-25, born in the early 2000’s. We grew up in this decrepit society. We have no illusion of the great-man-theory, that we’re going to be saved by any one person. Ultimately, it’s our collective struggle, collective unity, and collective will to win that’s going to make this society one meant for everybody.”
“I think there is a lot of fear mongering, a lot of pessimism about the future, but I always like the phrase, ‘The future is bright,’” Rathburn agreed. “‘The road is torturous but the future is bright.’ When I look at the people in this room, when I look over at Audari here, I don’t know how anyone can say the future isn’t bright. This is the next generation of workers, students, activists who are going to change this country and this world for the better…There’s work to be done. Get involved.”
