Many of the protesters marching through downtown Thursday against the Bush administration were veteran activists, but the demonstration was a first for Gina Latinovich.
After learning of the event from a leaflet at a farmers market, the housewife from River Forest and her 11-year-old daughter attended their first protest together.
“I’ve been feeling hopeless about the war and global warming, and I realized I couldn’t wait anymore,” said Latinovich, 49.
Police estimated that about 1,500 people attended Chicago’s march from Grant Park to Federal Plaza Thursday afternoon during a day of national protests in more than 100 cities called “World Can’t Wait–Drive Out the Bush Regime.”
Although the protesters had a shared distaste for the Bush administration, the name of the march held a different meaning for each one. Latinovich said it meant criminal investigations into Bush policies such as the Iraq war, wiretapping and the use of torture. For others, it meant everything from impeachment to the Democrats winning November congressional elections.
Rebecca Miller, a freshman at Columbia College, missed her afternoon cultural anthropology class to attend the rally because she said she feared the Iraq war was only breeding more terrorism. She said she hoped young people would vote to push the Republicans out of Congress to put a check on the president.
“It’s just one class. I can always make up the homework,” Miller, 18, said as the march left Grant Park. “This is more important.”
But Miller was one of many protesters disappointed with the turnout, which had “more police than protesters,” she said. Police were prepared for a march of more than 10,000 people, the figure protest organizers had expected. Several protesters theorized that turnout was low because the people who shared their views weren’t willing to leave school or work in the middle of the day.
More than 100 state, county and city police officers, some wearing riot gear, lined the 3 1/2-block parade route along Jackson Boulevard. There were no problems with protesters or street closures, officials said.
The march turned out to be much shorter than planned because the group’s permit application for a 2-mile route through downtown along North Michigan Avenue was denied by city officials two weeks ago.
In a last-minute effort, organizers appealed the city’s decision in federal court Thursday morning. Just hours before the march began, U.S. Magistrate Judge Nan Nolan denied the group’s request for a temporary restraining order against the city. She said the request for a restraining order came too late–that it would be unfeasible at the 11th hour to reroute CTA buses and make alternate plans for emergency vehicles.
Protesters started gathering shortly before noon in Grant Park at Jackson and Columbus Drives. Speakers including actors, poets and political activists addressed the crowd on subjects ranging from the response to Hurricane Katrina to the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq.
Tribal drummers performed, participants carried protest signs reading “Out of Iraq” and “No War in Iran,” and one man wore a mask of Bush, devil horns and a cape. The march arrived around 3 p.m. at Federal Plaza, where speeches and performances continued into the evening.
Thyandrea Adams, 29, who arrived at the protest with two busloads of people from the Cabrini-Green housing complex, said she shut down her moving business for the day to attend the march. Adams, who said she wants the president impeached, said her biggest issue is how funding for the Iraq war is keeping money from poor neighborhoods like hers.
“I told them not to come into work today,” Adams said of her 15 employees. “This is a day that’s important. It was worth it to show support from our community.”
———-
efitzsimmons@tribune.com
bmccarthy@tribune.com
