Thursday, Aug. 22, with a smaller, final march that did not get as close to the United Center where the Democratic National Convention (DNC) was being held. Still, organizers and attendees said they were pleased with the turnout and hoped that the solidarity, energy, and organization they built would push President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to end weapons sales to Israel and force a ceasefire in Gaza. Israel’s bombing and military campaign since October has killed more than 40,000 Gazans, 70% of them women and children.

The Coalition to March on the DNC, which organized the protest, held a press conference featuring speakers like Dr. Tammy Abughnaim, who had just returned from providing medical care for civilians injured in Gaza. 

Abughnaim said she had seen deliberate targeting of children, including a 19-month-old shot in the leg and a 19-year-old used as a human shield by Israeli troops; he was shot in the side when they were finished with him. 

“I am trained to save lives,” Abughnaim said. “I could not do my job in Gaza because the U.S. keeps supplying weapons that kill my patients.”

The smaller crowd meant that counter-protesters were more visible and audible than earlier in the week. A group with a bullhorn tried unsuccessfully to disrupt the press conference while chanting “America First” slogans. Failed Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy made a brief appearance before being driven away by protesters shouting, “Racists go home!”  

Speeches to the gathering protesters started on the main stage in Union Park at about 5 p.m. The march left the park at 6:30 p.m. and headed towards Park 578, which is within sight of the United Center. 

During the first day of the protests on Aug. 19, protesters entered the park and chanted within sight of the DNC. Scattered protesters also knocked down some barriers separating them from a police line, resulting in a handful of arrests. 

This time, however, the police were out in greater force; hundreds lined the streets around the park. Protest leaders, seeing the police presence, decided to stay in the street to avoid a confrontation. During a protest by a different group at the Israeli consulate earlier in the week, more than 70 people were arrested, including several journalists.

Protesters chanted in the street outside the park for half an hour before returning to Union Park. They tried to continue on the circular march route back to Park 578 until Harris delivered her speech at the convention center. However, they were stopped by police. Most protesters then returned to Union Park, but some sat on Ashland Avenue in protest. Chants and protests continued through Harris’ speech, which ended at about 10:30 p.m. In a statement after the rally, the Coalition said that police had threatened mass arrests.

For some, it was a somewhat frustrating conclusion to the DNC demonstrations. But, throughout the day, people at the rally were upbeat about what they had accomplished and about the movement’s future. 

“We brought together a lot of people under this demand of ending all U.S. aid to Israel, and these were the very people the Democrats claim to represent,” said Faayani Aboma Mijana, a Coalition to March on the DNC spokesperson. Mijana added that even Biden said that “protesters have a point” during his speech at the DNC. 

“That’s the pressure we put on the Democratic party leadership,” Mijana said. “And at the same time, we need more than words. We need action.”

Nicholas Richard-Thompson, whose organization Black Alliance for Peace is part of the Coalition, told Prism, “Movements take time. I’m under no impression that [tomorrow’s] revolution will happen. But you have to organize as if it were and be prepared to have a long, protracted struggle to get the things that we want—human rights, food, water, a global end to permanent wars. I think [the DNC protest] has been successful, and the start of something bigger.”

Thompson also noted that progressive organizers had been successful in helping to elect Mayor Brandon Johnson and in getting him to follow through on promises to end the contract for the controversial and flawed ShotSpotter gunfire detection system. Johnson has also characterized Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide. 

“I think a lot of power can be seized at the local level,” Thompson said. Building power isn’t just about influencing presidents, he suggested, but about creating coalitions that can sway mayors and city councils, such as the way progressives had, to some extent, swayed Johnson on crucial issues, including Gaza.

Andy Thayer, an organizer with Bodies Outside of Unjust Laws, told Prism that most organizers “have got little faith in people on the inside [of the DNC] actually listening to reasoned arguments and changing their minds.” But, he said, protests engage people and can have long-term effects on opinion and on society. 

Thayer pointed to the protests after Matthew Shepard’s gay-bashing murder in 1998. Demonstrations did little to change policy directly, but young people stepped in. 

“Gradually they got older and older, and the other side was losing the demographic battle because the youth were talking to their peers.” Thayer added that something similar is happening now with younger Jewish people organizing for Palestinian liberation. 

“The other side fears it,” he said. 

Thayer said he would like to see large-scale demonstrations on the day after the presidential election “regardless of who wins.” Coalition to March on the DNC organizers expressed their determination to continue to organize and keep the pressure on political leaders of both parties. In a press release, Husam Marajda of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) promised further action. 

“All of the media couldn’t stop talking about the genocide on Palestine this week because of our organizing,” he said. “And we’re going to keep organizing until U.S. aid to Israel is ended and Palestine is free.”