DOWNTOWN — With their city caught in the country’s largest immigration enforcement operation, as many as 250,000 Chicagoans flooded Downtown on Saturday to condemn Donald Trump’s administration as part of the second nationwide No Kings protest.
“We will never surrender!” Illinois governor JB Pritzker said. “Throughout history we have learned that tyranny doesn’t arrive with dramatic proclamations. We learned that it comes wrapped in ‘law and order’ … The reality here in Chicago is this: Black and Brown people are being targeted for the color of their skin. Children are being zip-tied and separated from their families … These people are not abstractions. They pay taxes on their businesses. They work hard — these people are the fabric of our society.”
“They want a rematch of the Civil War,” Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson said to the crowd. “But we are here to stand firm, to stand committed — that we will not bend. We will not cower. The attempt to divide and conquer this nation will not prevail, because when the people are united, justice always prevails.”
Johnson closed out his remarks by calling for a general strike.
Now ~250k people is definitely enough to cool off my dooming. Good job Chicago!
That’s about 8.3% of the city population (approximately 1 in 12 people).
If the people were limited to the Population of the Chicago proper, then 8.3% might be more accurate – unfortunately, the greater Metropolitan area is 9.5 million and therefore 250,000 people is around 2.6%
However, I’m just being pedantic, and 250,000 people is a great turnout regardless.
You also have to account for the fact there were several No Kings rallies around the Chicago area that may have drawn from the outer meto areas.
Yeah, I get it. I did say city and the suburbs around, what would be “Chicagoland”, all had their own as well such as Evanston, Wilmette, Oak Park, La Grange, Elmhurst, etc.
I’m sure people from the burbs came into the downtown for this as well, but there were so many all over beyond downtown which is what that 250,000 is counting I believe. It was a 2 mile long stretch of protesters for downtown Chicago.
I made my body present at one of the smaller ones in the burbs because I was not going to get stuck downtown where I live. However, I did drive by on my way to the library And it was sizable.
Wow this does put a spark of hope into my doomer heart, this needs to happen every weekend, with a growing population, until we get what we want – which I guess is different for everyone so this might be difficult
The greater chicago area had many individual protests in the various burbs. The group organizing for my town had 300 signups and they usually get a lot more than what signups. Im not sure of the number though because I went downtown. So if you are taking the greater chicago area you would need to get the number from all the suburban protests in that area and add it to the downtown one.
Most of us in the greater metropolitan area attended local events. There were 3 gatherings between my suburban city and the city of Chicago alone.