Protests for Palestine at the DNC

Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor

28 Aug 2024

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DNC protest organizers kept Democrats’ responsibility for the Gaza genocide in the news from October to August.

Protests at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago took place against the backdrop of Israel’s ever more horrifying war on Gaza. Since the Israeli air and ground war began after October 7, the Gaza Health Ministry has registered the death toll at more than 40,000. Palestinian Civil Defense and OCHA, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, estimates that another 10,000 are buried under the rubble and that it will take years to dig out the bodies. The medical journal The Lancet estimates that the death toll may be as high as 186,000 if deaths caused by shortages of food, water, shelter, medicine, and medical care are included.

In February, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said that more than 84% of health facilities and 70% of all civilian infrastructure had been destroyed or severely damaged. At the end of June UNRWA also reported that 10 children per day are losing one or both legs, and doctors report performing amputations without anesthesia. The United States has sent Israel tens of billions of dollars worth of military equipment, including thousands of 2000-pound bombs, since October 7.

Pro-Palestinian activists held rallies, marches, and actions every day of the convention, from August 19 to 22.

Comparisons to the 1968 protests

In the run-up to the convention, there were near daily headlines asking whether protest against the US-Israeli war on Gaza could rival that of the anti-Vietnam War protest that roiled Chicago during the Democrats’ 1968 convention. Many outlets recycled images of ’68 protestors battling with police who bloodied them with billy clubs and dragged them through the streets into paddy wagons. Mayor Richard Daley had erected a barbed wire fence around the International Amphitheatre, where the convention took place, and the most violent struggle took place on Michigan Avenue outside the Conrad Hilton Hotel where delegates and Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey were staying.

Police Chief Frank Snelling repeatedly assured the city that the Chicago Police were ready to make sure that nothing like ’68 happened again. Reinforcements were brought in from Milwaukee, and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker announced that 250 Illinois National Guardsmen would be at the ready.

The Secret Service orchestrated security, establishing a “hard” fenced security perimeter blocks away from the convention at Chicago’s United Center. The fencing also secured McCormick Place, a huge convention center with adjoining hotels where delegates stayed and attended ancillary events. The fencing was “non-scalable,” meaning there were no gaps that anyone could have used to grab hold or insert a foot between its metal braids. Police vans, Chicago Police, and Homeland Security and Secret Service agents were ever present around the fence.

At checkpoints inside the hard security perimeter, those driving vehicles or on foot were required to present credentials.

The Chicago Police were deployed to secure the “soft” perimeter outside the fencing, which meant everything outside, but most of all the street boundaries in which protest was to be contained. During both the permitted and unpermitted marches, bicycle police lined either side of the street, and lines of riot police, often four deep, were deployed at critical intersections to keep protestors from spilling through them. Chicago Police and Secret Service secured rooftops within sight of the United Center, and helicopters constantly hovered overhead. The ACLU described the myriad surveillance technologies likely to be deployed.

In radical contrast to ’68, police and security forces clearly had orders to avoid confrontation or arrests. It’s widely believed that images of chaos in the streets of Chicago alienated voters and tipped the election from Hubert Humphrey to Richard Nixon even though that race was not even close; Nixon won 301 electoral votes to Humphrey’s 191. Nevertheless, security forces clearly had orders to avoid a repeat.

Code Pink’s Jodie Evans managed to get inside the convention hall on Tuesday night while Obama was speaking and unfurl a banner reading “Free Palestine” before she was dragged out. Code Pink activists were also dragged out of the delegate's welcome dinner on Chicago’s Navy Pier, the Climate Caucus at McCormick Place, the Women’s Caucus, also at McCormick Place, and the Hyatt Hotel where they staged a demonstration. They were dragged out, but not arrested, said Evans, unlike conventions past.

The only dustup took place on Tuesday night at a rally outside the Israeli consulate in downtown Chicago, nearly two miles from the United Center, where hundreds of protestors waved Palestinian flags and signs demanding an end to US weapons transfers to Israel and burned a blended US-Israeli flag.

Bicycle police lined the sidewalks on either side of the block, and police in full riot gear assembled at each intersection, kettling the protest with up to 1000 officers. At one point a line of protestors seemed to march into one of the riot police lines, leading to arrests. It wasn’t possible to see how many were arrested, and ultimately the remaining crowd was allowed to disperse. The National Lawyers Guild later reported 59 arrests that night and 76 over the course of the convention.

The Poor People’s Army had a permit to march to the convention steps because the City had failed to respond to their appeal of a permit denial in time, but in the end the city just chose to ignore it. Police arrested Cheri Honkala at the end of the Poor People’s Army March, when she climbed up on a dumpster to insert a citizen’s arrest warrant charging Democrats with crimes against humanity into the top of the non-scalable fencing.

So what was gained by the DNC protests?

Crowds on the three marches were in the thousands, not the tens of thousands expected. No one can be sure why but there are several possibilities. The Coalition to March on the DNC had the endorsement of over 200 organizations, but mostly with small memberships. Major labor unions, civil rights and environmental organizations, women’s rights and LGBTQ+ groups no doubt feel more at home pressing their issues within the Democratic Party even if they sympathize with Palestine.

Students were expected to converge from across the country, but many students have to work one or more jobs just to stay in school now, unlike in ’68, a more widely prosperous time. I had hoped to meet up with another independent journalist who texted me halfway through the week to say he had to leave because he’d spent all he could afford on a hotel stay.

Others may have stayed away for fear of violence because of all the hype about a replay of ’68, although the march organizers repeated many times that they were holding a “family friendly” march and were not seeking confrontation or arrest.

There's always an issue of whether to hold a rally on a weekday or a Saturday because people who work 9 to 5 can't attend until evening on weekdays, and on weekends there's often no one around to protest, as was the case last week.

Nevertheless, the Coalition to March on the DNC’s accomplishment was considerable. The city initially attempted to confine them to Grant Park, three miles from the United Center, but the Coalition sued for their First Amendment rights until the city agreed to let them rally at Union Park, 15 minutes from the convention. They didn’t win the 2.3-mile route down wide streets that passed alongside the convention center, but they did win a 1.1-mile route several blocks away.

When the city finally granted their permit it came with preposterous conditions—that they have no speakers platform, no sound system, no portable toilets, and no tents or canopies. The Coalition appealed in court, Mayor Brandon Johnson intervened on behalf of the protestors, and the city conceded to all but the tents and canopies.

By refusing to be confined three miles away from the convention and relentlessly pressing for their First Amendment rights, the Coalition made Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the Democrats’ responsibility for the Gaza genocide a convention issue from October to August, inspiring weekly and often daily reports on their struggles. As a result, the press were copious at every march, where Palestinian flags were held high.

Ann Garrison is a Black Agenda Report Contributing Editor based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2014, she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region. She can be reached at ann@anngarrison.com. You can help support her work on Patreon.

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