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Related: About this forumPlanned protest, shutdown of North Lake Shore Drive aims to 'redistribute the pain in Chicago'
Planned protest, shutdown of North Lake Shore Drive aims to 'redistribute the pain in Chicago'http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-met-news-conference-protest-shutdown-20180724-story.html
Standing across the street from the Chicago Cubs’ bright red marquee, community activists said Tuesday they’re planning to bring the city’s North Side to a standstill next week to “redistribute the pain in Chicago.”
And that’s why they’re planning to shut down a stretch of North Lake Shore Drive during evening rush hour to make way for an anti-violence march that will wind its way to the fringes of Wrigley Field as the Cubs prepare for a night game there, organizers say. The late-afternoon march Aug. 2 could effectively shut down portions of the city as traffic already will be heavy with Lollapalooza getting underway in Grant Park.
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If the group manages to march on Lake Shore Drive, it would be the second protest this summer to shut down a major roadway in Chicago. Earlier this month, the Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor at St. Sabina Catholic Church on the South Side, led a demonstration on the Dan Ryan Expressway.
But don’t expect to see Pfleger, who took to social media to discuss the upcoming march, in the crowd next week. Pfleger told the Tribune he’s hesitant to participate because these organizers are calling for the mayor and the city’s top cop to resign. Johnson marched with Pfleger when he led the Dan Ryan shutdown. And the youth group Pfleger’s been working with is planning to meet with elected officials and candidates to see what policies could be changed that would address gun violence, better schools and more resources for the South and West sides of the city.
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riversedge
(73,387 posts)
TheRealNorth
(9,629 posts)And may turn more people against you. If the purpose it to cause pain, then target the Trump voters and shut down thoroughfares in areas with a high concentration of Republicans.
But again, I am not sure if this sort of collective punishment is going to have much effect other than turn people against you.
tonyt53
(5,737 posts)
Recursion
(56,582 posts)And keep nonwhite people away from the lake. It's one of the better examples out there of how our urban planning and architecture create systemic inequality.
I love the expressway protests, because it's the only time you can actually get people to listen to that kind of talk.
Kind of Blue
(8,709 posts)And there are factors that will determine whether this protest will succeed that includes if they can sustain it over a long period of time and maintain non-violence.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)And I think specifically the expressway protests are exactly in his spirit. They're like his salt march was: direct action. Everybody praises non-violence, but they forget that it has to be non-violent direct action to be effective.
Kind of Blue
(8,709 posts)a Direction Action Department in the Movement.
As an aside, and I may be mistaken but recalling what others have written, Dr. King was not too cool with taking on the Pettus Bridge but later changed his mind.
He wrote:
During our nonviolent direct-action campaigns we were advised, and again we were so advised in Selma, that violence might ensue. Herein lay a dilemma: of course, there always was the likelihood that, because of the hostility to our demonstrations, acts of lawlessness may be precipitated. We realized that we had to exercise extreme caution so that the directaction program would not be conducted in a manner that might be considered provocative or an invitation to violence. Accordingly, each situation had to be studied in detail: the strength and the temper of our adversaries had to be estimated and any change in any of these factors would affect the details of our strategy. Nevertheless, we had to begin a march without knowing when or where it would actually terminate...
I say to you this afternoon that I would rather die on the highway. of Alabama than make a butchery of my conscience. I say to you, when we march, don't panic and remember that we must remain true to nonviolence. I'm asking everybody in the line, if you can't be nonviolent, don't get in here. If you can't accept blows without retaliating don't get in the line. If you can accept it out of your commitment to nonviolence, you will somehow do something for this nation that ma well save it. If you can accept it, you will leave those state trooper bloodied with their own barbarities. If you can accept it, you will d. something that will transform conditions here in Alabama...
In conclusion, Selma brought us a voting bill, and it also brought us the grand alliance of the children of light in this nation and made possible changes in our political and economic life heretofore undreamed o£ With President Johnson, SCLC viewed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as "one of the most monumental laws in the history of American freedom." We had a federal law which could be used, and use it we would. Where it fell short, we had our tradition of struggle and the method of nonviolent direct action, and these too we would use.
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/chapter-26-selma