Every formal event during the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago was accompanied by boisterous, but largely peaceful, protests. The first and largest protest on Monday began in the city's Union Park followed by a march toward the United Center where most of the formal convention activities were held.
The crowd was well below half of the 20,000 protesters that the organizers had hoped for and although the common theme was the ongoing Israeli attacks in Gaza, groups joined in that stood for numerous other issues both in the U.S. and abroad.
Angel Gonzales is a student at University of Illinois at Chicago, and for him the protest was a moral issue.
"There are billions of United States tax dollars that are going to help fund genocide by Israel that should instead be used to fund housing, education, health care and jobs," Gonzalez said. "I know Illinois is a blue state, but I'm happy the convention is being held here, because we have the largest Palestinian population of any U.S. city and there is a movement here."
Richard Berg is an educator and Chicago Teachers Union member, and he feels the U.S. is funding Israel's incursion into Gaza at the expense of labor and education right here at home.
"Right now, we're being told that there's not enough money to go into our schools and to pay teachers, yet they're sending billions of dollars to Israel to bomb people in Gaza," Berg said. "We think that money is better spent in schools throughout Illinois."
"We are happy they are holding the convention here because we can tell them what we think," Berg said. "I was also a protester at the Republican National Convention to protest President Trump's education secretary, Betsy DeVos, and what she did to public education."
Chicago resident Pidgeon Pagonis said the protest was all about autonomy for the Palestinian people.
"I am an intersex person who had my autonomy stripped from me as a baby and the hospital systems here," Pagonis said. "I believe every person on this earth deserves autonomy, including the Palestinian people."
There were several small counterprotests, including a group of people carrying Israeli flags and a fundamentalist Christian group who used bullhorns to broadcast their message that people of the Islamic faith need to repent or they will not be saved. In each case, a cordon of Chicago Police officers arrived quickly to keep the protesting groups from clashing with each other.
Protest organizer Kobi Guillory of Chicago was glad that the Democratic Party chose Chicago for its convention.
"We were always going to march on this convention, regardless of where it was," Guillory said. "The fact that it is here, with the nation's largest Palestinian community, means it is going to be a very significant march."
The largest protest was scheduled for the convention's first day because that was the day President Joe Biden spoke at the convention. The man that protesters derisively called "Genocide Joe" is the person the organizers blamed for the United States' continued support of Israel in light of the situation in Gaza.
Uncommitted delegates staged a protest sit-in at the United Center that grew larger every evening. The protesters used megaphones to bombard those entering and leaving the convention with the names of those who have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza.
In response to the protests that were a daily convention presence, Kamala Harris said in her acceptance speech on Thursday that now is the time to get a hostage return and ceasefire agreement worked out in Gaza. But she affirmed Israel's right to exist and called the Hamas attack of last October a terrorist act. While she said the Palestinian people deserve a right to safety and security, she didn't mention a separate Palestinian state. – David Blanchette