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This year’s Democratic National Convention (DNC) is anticipated to be a historic moment, with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris expected to secure the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in the 2024 Presidential Election. The DNC officially began Monday at McCormick Place and the United Center, kicking off four days of programming centered around the theme “For the People, For Our Future.”
The convention will feature speeches from President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, Vice President Harris, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (Harris’s VP pick), former President Barack Obama, former First Lady Michelle Obama, Gov. JB Pritzker, Mayor Brandon Johnson, and others.
In contrast with the optimistic tone of the DNC, local Chicago organizers, including the Chicago Dissenters, are hosting a counter-convention called “F* The G(Genocidal)NC.”
From Aug. 17-23, the event is designed to help Chicagoans unite and understand the connections between their struggles for liberation and freedom and U.S. militarism, as well as the genocides occurring simultaneously in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan, according to Kae Dennis, an organizer with the Chicago Dissenters. The other expressed goal is to encourage attendees to think beyond electoral politics and toward building sustainable collective power that extends beyond the DNC.
“This is meant to be a generative and unifying space against the militarism being waged across the diaspora, whether it be the Black diaspora or Palestine,” Dennis said.
Black people have been victims of police violence and torture and have been displaced from their neighborhoods due to gentrification, Palestinians are experiencing a similar reality.
ENDING U.S. AID TO ISRAEL
“We’re marching to demand an end to all U.S. aid to Israel, to stand with Palestine, and to stop the genocide,” said Faayani Aboma Mijana, a leading organizer with the Coalition to March on the DNC and the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR).
Mijana, who uses they/them pronouns, highlighted the parallels between the experiences of Black communities in the U.S. and Palestinians, both facing violence and displacement.
They emphasized the coalition’s demand to end U.S. aid to Israel and stop the genocide in Gaza, where over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023.
On Aug. 10, the Biden administration approved more than $20 billion in weapons sales to Israel. Pro-Palestine supporters are urging Harris and her Vice Presidential pick, Tim Walz, to support an arms embargo on Israel.
“Our principal demand is around Palestine, to end all U.S. aid to Israel. These other demands are directly connected to these Palestine demands because, as the U.S. is sending tens of billions of dollars to Israel and all over the world for these endless wars and this genocide, people’s rights in this country continue to deteriorate,” Mijana said.
Chicago organizations such as the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) and CAARPR have been protesting against the war since last October, even confronting U.S. President Joe Biden when he was in town for a political fundraiser.
“It’s important that the people responsible for this genocide—the Democratic Party leadership, [President Joe] Biden, [Vice President] Kamala Harris, and [U.S. Secretary of State] Antony Blinken—know that during their event of pageantry, the people they claim to represent, given the broad scope of our coalition, do not stand with them and do not support this genocide,” Mijana said.
The F* The GNC counter-convention kicked off on Saturday at Co-Prosperity Sphere, a cultural event space in Bridgeport, with a radical zine and book fair, screen printing, and movement workshops.
“It’s about connecting parts of the left and unifying different bases, especially in Chicago. We’re trying our best to unite people and explore the interconnectedness of our struggles,” Dennis said. The Chicago Dissenters are part of the local branch of Dissenters, a national movement organization that aims to reclaim resources from the war industry, invest in nourishing institutions, and more.
The events include teach-ins, panels on topics such as U.S. militarism and imperialism, stopping cop cities, immigration, criminalization, and the U.S. continued support of Israel’s war in Gaza. Through the counter-convention, the Chicago Dissenters are creating spaces through workshops and teach-ins to learn and explore, awaken public consciousness, and build sustainable collective power to address long standing challenges.
Dennis, who uses they/them pronouns, explained that their approach is rooted in a framework of prison abolition.
“We’re trying to coordinate action that divests money from the military and prison-industrial complexes. We want to make sure that that money goes to actual communities that are the most disadvantaged, that goes to Black communities, disabled communities, queer communities, and it helps those communities build together,” they continued.
On Sunday, about 50 people gathered at Co-Prosperity for a panel titled: “Welcome to Chicago: Radical Memories, Revolutionary Horizons.” The panel was moderated by Bill Ayers, a retired professor and organizer and featured Aislinn Pulley, executive director of the Chicago Torture Justice Center; Kobi Guillory, an organizer with the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression; and Dixon Romeo, executive director of Not Me We. They were joined by activists David Gilbert, Jamil Muntaqim and Laura Whitehorn.
Their multigenerational panel focused on the importance of collaboration in addressing systemic issues such as racism, police brutality, mass incarceration, capitalism, housing, and reproductive rights, as well as the ongoing genocides occurring worldwide.
The panel also included a moment for reflection, as panelists shared their experiences organizing movements during the Anti-War, Women Liberation and Civil Rights eras, as well as more recent efforts like the movement for Black lives, the fight for reparations for survivors of police torture, and the push for a community benefits agreement for residents who live near the Obama Presidential Center.
“What was happening was a seismic shift in consciousness and awareness regarding the systemic reality of police violence and police murder and killing,” Pulley said, referring to the Ferguson, Missouri uprisings following the police murder of Michael Brown in 2014. Pulley and other Black organizers traveled to Ferguson during the uprisings.
Using what they learned in Ferguson helped her and other organizers push for the passage of a reparations ordinance for Jon Burge torture survivors, which resulted in Chicago becoming the first municipality in the U.S. to provide reparations for victims of racially motivated police violence.
“We did a six month targeted campaign. We took over public transit, we did mock ballots and we created a curriculum that we offered online for free and we asked people to hold their own teach-ins,” she explained.
Thousands marched alongside the Coalition to March on the DNC on Monday afternoon at Union Park. The coalition is also planning a closing march and rally on Thursday at Union Park.
REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS
Beyond the counter-convention, Chicago organizers will participate in marches and rallies throughout convention week. On Sunday, hundreds gathered downtown for the Bodies of Unjust Laws: Coalition for Reproductive Justice & LGBTQ Freedom rally, held on the eve of the DNC.
The coalition is advocating for national reproductive rights legislation, LGBTQ+ rights, a guaranteed basic income for all, and an end to the genocide of Palestinians. Sunday’s protest was the first of several demonstrations, pop-ups, marches, rallies, workshops, and teach-ins that will be held citywide throughout the convention week.
It’s been more than two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade—the landmark decision that legalized abortion in the U.S. in 1973. Since Roe was overturned, 14 states have passed abortion bans, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, while Georgia, South Carolina, Florida and Iowa banned abortion past six weeks of pregnancy.
POVERTY/AFFORDABLE HOUSING
The Poor People’s Army (previously known as the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign) was among the first groups granted a permit to protest by the city of Chicago.
The group marched on the Republican National Convention in July and marched from their encampment in Humboldt Park to the United Center on Monday afternoon.
“The thing that we need to be upset about and ashamed of is that in our rich country, we allow anybody to be homeless on our streets for even five minutes,” Poor People’s Army Spokesperson Cheri Honkala wrote in a statement, “and if people are ashamed of that if the mayor’s ashamed of that, then they need to put an end to it.”
The influx of thousands of Latin American migrants over the last two years further exacerbated Chicago’s housing crisis. The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH) estimates that 68,440 people are experiencing some form of homelessness, according to its 2023 annual report.
Homelessness disproportionately affects Black and Latinx residents. Though Black residents make up nearly 30 percent of the city’s population, more than 53 percent are experiencing homelessness.
On a national level, there was a 14% increase in the number of people staying in shelters on the night of the Point-in-Time Count (PIT Count), according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Homeowners and renters feel the lack of affordable housing units nationwide, according to the Pew Research Center.
For Wateka Kline Peter, a South Side resident, community violence, employment, and rent control are the issues she hopes will be addressed while the Democratic Party is in town.
“In Chicago, a landlord can just go on your rent and could be $100 more, pricing a lot of people out,” Peter said. “A lot of people are staying with relatives and things like that because they can’t afford to rent. It’s like, you may get an increase on your salary, but that’s going to your rent. So issues like that need to be addressed.”
Last week, Harris unveiled a new economic plan that proposes providing up to $6,000 to low- and middle-income families when they have a new baby, offering $25,000 for first-time homebuyers, and lowering prescription drug costs.
OTHER DEMANDS
In addition to demanding an end to U.S. military aid to Israel, the Coalition to March on the DNC, which comprises 200 organizations, will march for increased funding for jobs, schools, healthcare, housing, environmental justice, defending the right to unionize and strike, immigrant rights, and advocating for community control of the police, Mijana explained.
Mijana hopes that the March on the DNC this week encourages more people to join their cause as they continue to build power in Chicago and across the nation.
“I’m hoping that we’re able to have a good march that a lot of people come to. Secondarily, I’m also hoping that we can build this movement for free Palestine, here in Chicago and around the country, even more, to bring more people into our ranks,” Mijana said. “These politicians have shown that they’re not going to do it themselves. They’re not going to stop the genocide and so we need to build a movement that’s big enough to force them to do it.”
