Environmental groups coming to Chicago for the Democratic National Convention had planned to protest Sunday at a toxic dump site on the Southeast Side.
Instead, they will be downtown in Grant Park, making their points as jet fighters and military transport planes buzz the lakefront at the annual Air and Water Show.
The site will have nothing to do with the anti-pollution groups’ causes but everything to do with getting their message out.
“I had to tell them, `I don’t think anyone will know you are doing it if you go so far away,’ ” said New York activist Dana Beal. He advised the groups to move downtown because of the thousands of reporters who will be concentrated there covering the entertainment and political events leading up to the four-day convention, which starts Monday.
As the first of a variety of protesters begin trickling into the city, they are organizing their events and plotting strategies for a week of activities designed to catch the eyes of 5,000 Democratic delegates, one president, dozens of other top policy makers and 15,000 members of the media.
In the process, Chicago will get a firsthand look at the modern choreography of protesting, in which a lot of what occurs isn’t spontaneous but rather tightly scripted and designed to get attention–whatever way possible.
It might take arrests. But after the cameras have departed, lawyers and bail are often at the ready for those who, in many cases, were designated for the handcuffs.
There has been an accountant-run lottery sponsored by the city for times in two officially designated protest pits.
Fax machines have burned up with missives from groups announcing their plans and whether they have received city permits.
Nothing can be said with certainty about an event bringing organizations of so many stripes to town, but the groups know that demonstrators don’t have access to TV cameras behind bars. Chicago police also are determined not to repeat embarrassing clashes with protesters such as those that occurred during the Democrats’ riotous 1968 convention here.
Even Operation Rescue’s plans to close abortion clinics during the convention were practiced in April at several suburban clinics.
At that time, Operation Rescue members sat down with police and agreed on ground rules that included trespassing for three to five minutes before police arrested those who wanted to be arrested.
Eight attorneys provide free service to Operation Rescue members who are arrested, and a lawyer sometimes is stationed at a jail. Money is collected from members to pay bail and fines, if needed.
Before the protest, the group usually sends a news release to media outlets. Lately, it has even taken to alerting police.
In anticipation of Operation Rescue’s arrival, some clinics close temporarily to avert a scene.
But many groups are planning to get their messages out without the threat of arrests.
“We do not want to be arrested and will not perform acts of civil disobedience intended to get us arrested,” said Robert MacDonald, local coordinator of the Festival of Life, an umbrella group of organizations that will hold a number of marches and rallies in Grant and Lincoln Parks.
“We want this to be a living village that will behave in a microcosm as the world should behave–in an environmentally conscious way, providing music, lots of free food, shelter and ways to solve problems,” MacDonald said.
Right-wing political gadfly William Kelly says he plans to do spontaneous political theater all over town to criticize President Clinton’s policies because “planning a protest takes away from the power of what you are saying.”
Some organizations have resorted to stunts in an attempt to rise above the clutter of hundreds of groups that have signed up to use the city’s protest pits, received parade permits or rented parking lots for rallies.
The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless has created Tree Man, a man in a tree costume who is a takeoff on Mr. Butt Man, a 7-foot foam-rubber cigarette that Democrats have used to hound Republican presidential candidate Robert Dole for accepting campaign contributions from the tobacco industry.
The Coalition for the Homeless has criticized Mayor Richard Daley for allegedly not doing enough to save single-room-occupancy hotels for the homeless while spending money on trees, shrubs and flowers to make the city pretty for the convention.
“Our slogan is, `Mayor Daley, if I were a tree, would you care for me?’ ” said John Donahue, the group’s executive director.
Tree Man made his debut Tuesday, appearing outside Daley’s home at 6:30 a.m. and then following him to a news conference.
Asked to describe Tree Man’s first day, organizer Gerardo Serna didn’t miss a beat.
“We held a little rally, did some chants and did a live feed for WGN,” he said.
Another group copying Mr. Butt Man is the anti-abortion Christian Defense Coalition, but it plans to make a more grisly use of the tactic.
During the convention, the group plans to trail Clinton, who supports abortion rights, with an “ugly-looking” character called Abortion Man, according to Rev. Patrick Mahoney, the group’s director.
During the 1992 Democratic convention in New York, members of the Washington, D.C., group were arrested for trying to hand Clinton a fetus.
The Not on the Guest List Coalition, while declining to reveal its exact plans, has said for months that it expects members to be arrested Tuesday during a march and rally for criminal-justice reforms.
In fact, when “Larry King Live” tried to book coalition organizer David Dellinger for an interview to recall his role as a 1968 protest leader, show officials were told that it couldn’t be Tuesday.
That’s the day Dellinger, 81, thinks he might be arrested.
