48 Hills was live from the DNC all week. Check out our full coverage here.
If there’s one thing that advocates for Palestinian liberation proved as the Democrats staged their party’s four-day rager in Chicago, it’s that people are finding more than one way to stand against genocide.
On Thursday afternoon, uncommitted DNC delegates were in the final hours of their 24-hour sit-in at the United Center in protest of the exclusion of Palestinian voices from the convention’s main stage. Blocks away, 11,000 protestors—according to a statement from Coalition to March on the DNC organizers—denounced US aid to Israel in the second major march of the week.
General sentiment for the Democrats at the march was one of excoriation over the Biden administration’s funding of the war in Gaza. But some coalition organizers expressed their respect for the delegates’ insider DNC efforts, which did result in the convention’s first sanctioned event focusing on Palestinian rights.
“We think mass unity is more important, but if they want to try for that within the party, we respect that,” said Hatem Abudayyeh, national chair of the US Palestinian Community Network, one of the Coalition to March on the DNC’s central organizing groups, at a pre-march press conference on Thursday.
“I absolutely appreciate the uncommitted delegates for taking up space,” said Irish Americans for Palestine national core organizing member Jennifer, who asked to be identified only by her first name. “They were voted in by their constituents, and they are taking that very seriously.”
Jennifer traveled from St. Louis to be a part of the Irish American contingent at the DNC protests, which met up for Monday and Thursday’s marches at Union Park’s statue of Irish socialist and union leader James Connolly. She formed part of IAP’s nationwide St. Patrick’s Day protests for Palestine, which included an action in Chicago—and had brought an Irish tri-colored flag to Thursday’s march.
“The same mechanisms of oppression, the same people who were colonizing and occupying Ireland just moved to Palestine once part of Ireland became free,” she continued, referencing the countries’ shared persecution by the Black and Tans. “However, Irish Americans are very divorced from that decolonial mindset. Unless we really, actually understand our history, we won’t quite get it. A lot of what we’re doing is political education. Our ancestors had to move because of genocide, because of starvation. It’s important for us to remember that and do more organizing for Palestinian liberation.”
Of course, it’s 2024 and not all protestors are taking the earnest route to make their point. Also in attendance at Union Park was absurdist New York City pro-Palestine performance artist Crackhead Barney, who rose to cult fame after confronting Zionist actor Alec Baldwin and subsequently appearing on FOX News’ Piers Morgan Uncensored for what the newscaster later called, “the most outrageous, absurd, shocking and ultimately pointless interview of my entire career.”
“The DNC has been very, very interesting. You know, the cops are really upset that I have whiteface on,” Barney, who was indeed sporting her trademark white woman drag and titty tape, told 48hills. “I was telling them that I’m a white woman and I’m privileged, and they can’t arrest me, and they give me the dirtiest looks. And then I asked them for some white tips and then one of them was really disgruntled. He was like, ‘You have to work hard every fucking day of your life.’ I think he’s trying to insinuate that Negros don’t work hard. But other than that, it’s been awesome.
“When you go protesting right now, not only do you have to take it to the streets, we also have to boycott,” continued Barney, who has posted DNC week interviews with third-party presidential candidates Jill Stein and Cornel West. “We have to tell them that we’re not going to fund genocide, we’re not going to fund your corporation, we’re not going to fund anything that’s funding genocide, apartheid, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia—we have to take it a step further, we have to be action-oriented.”
For weeks, coalition organizers have emphasized that, rather than cops, their trained community marshals would shoulder the responsibility for keeping protestors safe—a concern high on the mind of many heading into DNC week after the police brutality against anti-Vietnam war protestors at the 1968 Chicago convention.
On Thursday, marshals did prove successful in de-escalating situations with several rightwing counter-protestors who popped up along the route. One person who interspersed Hebrew phrases with Nazi salutes experienced a beatdown at Union Park that was quickly diffused by group including a marshal. More than one MAGA supporter was led by them out of the thick of the march, once to the crowd’s exuberant chant of the chorus from Steam’s 1969 anthem “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye.”
A stage had apparently been set up for speakers at Park #578, site of the security perimeter breach on Monday after the main march contingent left the area that resulted in the arrest of four people, according to Chicago PD. But the march stopped on a street next to the park, rather than entering the area where a handful of protestors and squadron of members of the press had nearly been kettled by police after the breach.
“For the last day, we were never planning to enter into #578,” coalition spokesperson Faayani Aboma Mijana told 48hills on Friday. “We did stop near it because it was important that we chant within sight and sound of the United Center.”
The park was the closest point on the coalition’s city-approved march route to the United Center, site of the DNC and the uncommitted delegates’ sit-in.
March organizers led the crowd in chants of “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido” and “Killer Kamala, you can’t hide, you’re committing genocide.” Nearing the end of the evening, the march paused on Lake Street a block and a half from Union Park under the elevated tracks of the L train for a final session of call and response. Organizers seemed reluctant to end the night.
They say they were in fact, claiming space. The Coalition sent a statement to press the next day upbraiding the CPD for their obfuscation and hostility throughout the process of organizing the march. On Thursday, “commanders threatened mass arrests,” over the pause on Lake Street, according to the statement. “Despite the threats, we were not intimidated and held our ground, eventually ending the march and protest on our own terms at Union Park over an hour later,” it continued.
After participating in Thursday’s march in his wheelchair, 81-year-old (“going on 82”) longtime Black liberation and socialist activist Frank Chapman did seem ready to call it a night—but also, invigorated by a new generation of Chicago activists.
“It gives me courage and inspiration,” he told 48hills. “I’m glad to see people coming up behind us who are going to continue to carry the torch.”
Though in 1968, Chapman was serving a 15-year sentence for a wrongful murder conviction, he was also enthused by the evolution in U.S. progressive protest that has taken place since that turbulent year.
“What I like about what’s going on right now with the Palestinian question is that the Palestinians are leading this. We didn’t have that gift during the Vietnam war,” continued Chapman, who delivered a rousing pre-march speech from the Union Park stage on Monday.
“The Vietnamese were not leading protests in the United States. Now, the Palestinians are leading the protest, and they’re leading it as citizens of this country as also as citizens of Palestine,” he said.
As the DNC closed, the party had refused to allow Palestinian voices on its main stage and instead, adopted a platform that misses calling for an arms embargo. Though uncommitted and ceasefire delegates had fought mightily, other attendees seemed callously unconcerned over loss of Gazan life. But for some in the pro-Palestine movement, these setbacks seemed temporary.
“That we can win,” said Chapman, when asked how he was feeling at the end of the week. “That the Democratic party and the Republican party are at the losing end of this. This is an international people’s coalition, and the people are going to win.”
