The schedule for today included a Pro-Palestinian protest at Union Park, the primary park permitted for protests, and a Pro-Israeli protest at the park down the street where the fence was breached on Monday. I couldn’t imagine how this would work. It seemed like a major mistake in permitting.

I arrived via the Green Line for the third day in the mid-afternoon. There wasn’t much going on at Union Park. Just the usual people setting up and lines and lines of police. So I walked over to the other park, which was also designated as a permitted protest site, to see if anything was happening there.

A woman was speaking on a megaphone to an audience of a few. She was surrounded by cardboard tombstones of people who had died from drug overdoses. I remembered the group from the RNC as well. A couple of people unrolled a huge banner that read 

Stop Bangledeshi Hindu Genocide by Islam. 

Stop Blood Stained Bangladeshi Garments. 

www.StopHinduGenocide.org

Yet another story of atrocities I know nothing about.

Here’s a bit from their website:

The Hindu minority in Bangladesh, constituting less than 10% of the population, has been declining dangerously over the years as they are subjected to relentless violence, discrimination and forced conversions. In recent days, the brutality has escalated to shocking levels. Hindu women and girls are being brutally gang-raped, in broad daylight while being stoned by other men, heir dignity and safety shattered in the name of religious hatred by radical Islamists. Temples—sacred spaces of worship and community gathering—are being desecrated, burnt, and looted, symbolizing the erasure of Hindu culture and spirituality.

And then there were a couple of people hanging out with Israeli flags. That was about it.

I stopped by the entrance to the United Center where a violinist was playing, I grabbed a few photos of him, and then one of my photographer friends sent a text that he was at the Billy Goat having a beer. Since not much was happening, I headed over to have a beer myself.

This is when I passed one of the only two people I saw selling any sort of Harris merchandise, and both of them were selling only t-shirts. And both seemed to have only a few dozen on hand.

That was such a contrast to the RNC! People were everywhere selling t-shirts, hats, flags, bobble heads, and even Trump breakfast cereal! And people were giving away fans emblazoned with Trump’s face. T-shirts were hilarious: “I’m voting for the felon,” Trump’s mugshot,” Trump as a rapper complete with a grill. There had to be dozens of different designs.

At the DNC, I saw shirts with Kamala’s face in the style of the famous Obama poster (original) and shirts that simply stated Harris-Walz. Oh, and shirts with Kamala’ Harris’s face and “Say it to my face.” 

The other huge difference was in how convention goers were dressed. At the DNC, the only noticeable thing about the clothing was that most people included something blue in their outfits, whether a shirt, a dress, or pants. At the RNC? Oh my goodness. It didn’t occur to me until after I left that I should have been focusing as much on taking photos of attendees as I had been on protesters. They were just as entertaining. Sadly, I did not capture that part of the RNC.

But suffice it to say that people took the opportunity to dress up loudly and proudly to show their patriotism! Matching baseball jerseys for state delegations, sequined cowboy hats, buttons everywhere, sparkly red white and blue dresses, American flag scarves, MAGA caps, Trump dresses, elephant hats, etc.

A side story having nothing to do with the DNC. The photographer I was meeting up with runs a photography meetup group that I have attended a number of times over the past few years. His outings are good opportunities to try out different techniques or to put myself in situations I’m not very comfortable in. Plus, I’ve met a few people along the way. I hadn’t really spent any time with him one-on-one, but here we were sitting across from each other as I sipped on a Billy Goat Pilsner. 

One of the first questions he asked was if I was from St. Louis. Yes, I said. Then he asked if I knew someone named Julie G********. Yes. I did. She went to my high school.

“I’m married to her,” he proudly exclaimed.

Crazy. What a small world. I wasn’t friends with her in high school and probably rarely if ever spoke to her, but our school was small enough that we knew everyone. I told him to tell her hello and that I would love for us all to get together. I can understand if she isn’t interested, but I always love seeing people from home!

The two of us headed back to the park for the Pro-Palestinian rally. No idea how many people were there – I am a horrible crowd estimator. But we have had these Palestinian protests on the streets of Chicago every weekend since October 7, and we have had protests this size. One difference is that the signage on this day was a lot more extravagant and creative.

By now, we knew the routine. After the speakers, the group gathered behind the March on the DNC banner at the end of Washington Blvd to begin the march. This would take us past the park alongside the United Center before the group would turn north and then east to walk under the L tracks along Lake St and back to Union Park.

As we reached the park, once again led by CPD Supervisor Snelling, lines of bike cops and cops in helmets with batons surrounded the park, ensuring that there would be no repeat of the breach on Monday. There was no Israeli rally taking place as scheduled. No one seemed interested in the park and the group marched on.

I got pretty far ahead of the march, trying to figure out how to get some decent, and different, shots. Then I saw the brand new Damen L Station, which opened up only a week earlier specifically in time to the DNC. It’s a huge, clean, modern station that crosses over the street the march would be passing under soon. I only saw two photographers up there. I raced inside, paid my fare and took the long escalator up to the bridge to get a bird’s eye view of the protesters. 

No sooner had I gotten up there than a group of police filed up the escalator. I chatted with a couple of people around me, all of us excited we were the first up here but also concerned about the cops headed to us. 

When the dozen police approached us, the threats began.

“Get off the bridge. No photographs or videos from the station. The only reason to be up here is to take a train. So if you don’t get on the train when it comes, we will detain you.”

At that point, a couple of people left. One guy said, “I’m waiting for the train.”

The police answered, “When it gets here in seven minutes, you had better get on that train.”

“No, I’m waiting for the Cottage Grove train, which doesn’t get here for 17 minutes,” he explained as the rest of us nodded in agreement that we were also waiting for the Cottage Grove train.”

The police said they would be standing there to make sure we got on the train. And for the next ten minutes, he hovered and repeated this to us.

In the meantime, the march had not turned the corner yet, so they weren’t in our vision, and we nervously implored the group to hurry it up!

When they finally did turn the corner, some ten minutes later, I snapped a few shots. They were pretty far from me still and pretty spread out. I realized the only way to get a good photo would be if they were right underneath me. But the threats were escalating. And then people in the protest realized they could come up to the station too. So swarms ran for the station and up the escalators. I decided it was time for me to bail. And I was a fish swimming upstream.

When I got on the street, a scuffle began when cops grabbed a woman trying to get into the station. I was too far away to see what exactly happened (thus, no photos), but the entire march stopped to chant, “Let her go!” which is a strategy that I have seen work more than once. I have no idea if it worked here.

I ran into the two I had first met up in the station, and we all kind of laughed at each other. All of us had clearly chickened out and bailed. And dang. I regretted that at this point. The cops in the station had been overwhelmed and couldn’t stop the flow of people. Now they were relying on police on the streets to stop more from entering. It seemed that those above had pretty much given up. The bridge was filled with photographers and people waving Palestinian flags. Grrrr.

The rest of the march continued without incident, and I was grateful for that. One young man wrapped in his keffiyeh climbed up one of the poles leading to the tracks above. He waved his flag above the crowd. This was the first time I had seen someone do that during the DNC. In many of the protests here in Chicago, there is usually a group of young men who want to defy authority and climb lampposts, signal lights, bus stops, etc. Surprisingly, these same young men are always successfully subdued by the leaders and the elders. A few stern words and they are usually climbing down.

The same happened here. One of the leaders climbed as far as he needed to grab the young man’s leg and start pulling him down. It didn’t take long for the young man to obey.

As the group rounded the corner to return to Union Park, I climbed up to the Ashland Green Line Station to head home. The sun was down, I didn’t need to hang out in the park after dark to see what would happen. And I really needed sleep.

The last day of the convention was fast approaching.

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More in the DNC Series

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