Mayor Brandon Johnson personally intervened in a dispute between his own administration and a coalition of activist groups set for a massive protest at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next week, helping reverse the city’s denial of a permit to set up stages and sound systems for rallies in a park near the United Center, the coalition’s leader said Friday.
The agreement, which was reached after hours of back-room negotiations between the parties, nullified an emergency motion filed in U.S. District Court earlier this week alleging the city had violated protestors’ First Amendment rights by restricting how the rallies could be staged.
“We talked directly to the mayor,” Hatem Abudayyeh, executive director of the Arab American Action Network, said during a news conference in Federal Plaza after the deal was struck. “We knew that he supported us, our coalition and these protests and it’s proof positive that he called one of the top leaders of the coalition directly on his cellphone and said ‘We’re gonna make this happen. I’m gonna make sure that everybody’s rights are protected.'”
Pressed on whom specifically the mayor called, Abudayyeh said it was Frank Chapman, of the National Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression.
“The mayor has said from the very beginning that he supports the protest movement,” Abudayyeh said. “The protest movement is what brought him to City Hall. … He said, ‘I understand that struggle. Because I am part of a national liberation struggle as well.'”
A spokesperson for the mayor was not immediately available for comment.
Johnson said at a news conference earlier Friday that his staff was “working out the details” with protesters.
“I’m going to make sure that these individuals have everything that they need to make sure that their voices are heard,” he said.
In addition to allowing a stage and sound system for two rallies in Union Park, the agreement with the city also allows for the setup of seven portable toilets on the far east side of Union Park, away from parade assembly and disbanding areas, according to the coalition.
Abudayyeh said the deal was proof that “organizing works.”
“The city pulled another move in bad faith by saying we can’t have any sound and we can’t have a stage in Union Park, and then we did what we do best,” he said. “We did the grassroots organizing that we know how to do, and we won what we needed to win.”
The latest controversy bubbled up just days away from the kickoff of the convention after the city responded by letter to two permit requests that have been pending for more than seven months to be able to install stages and sound equipment as well as portable toilets and other amenities in Union Park and another smaller park along the planned protest route.
The letter, which was attached to the emergency motion filed late Wednesday, stated the rally petitions were granted “subject to the following conditions: no stages or platforms, portable restrooms or toilets, tents or canopies, or sound equipment may be installed by your organization.”
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The city said it was going to provide a stage and amplified sound at one of the parks which will be used by multiple organizations during the four-day event, and that allowing other groups to bring in their own equipment would be “redundant.”
The letter, signed by Chicago Department of Transportation Assistant Commissioner Bryan Gallardo, also cited myriad safety concerns, as tents and portable toilets can be used to conceal weapons or other illegal activity and their materials can be broken down and used as weapons against the police.
“While CDOT is not suggesting that your particular group will use these items in these ways, their presence in the park could be abused by others to harm members of the public or law enforcement officers,” the letter read.
At a rally with other protest organizers and supporters outside City Hall on Thursday, Abudayyeh said it was clear the city doesn’t “want us to speak.”
“They are restricting our rights based on content,” Abudayyeh said. “Someone doesn’t want us to speak about Palestine.”
The temperature had lowered considerably by Thursday afternoon, however, as both sides reported to the judge during a brief telephone hearing that they were working behind the scenes on a settlement.
An in-person hearing had been scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Friday at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. Instead, the plaintiffs abruptly withdrew the emergency motion and the hearing was canceled.
The city’s Friday agreement allows the demonstrators to use stages and sound equipment, but the city will not be providing such equipment at Union Park, Abudayyeh said.
The coalition planning the march is continuing to press the city for a longer route for its Monday and Thursday marches, he added.
The city has permitted the group to take a roughly 1-mile march route starting in Union Park on Monday and Thursday, court records show. A similar offer has been extended to several other protest groups.
The route, first proposed by the mayor’s administration last month, calls for protesters to assemble in Union Park on the Near West Side before marching west along Washington Boulevard to Hermitage Avenue, then past a small park north of the United Center. The route then turns east on Lake Street back to Union Park.
The march’s organizers had been fighting for a wider, longer path to the convention center, including being allowed to stay on Washington Boulevard instead of being diverted to smaller side streets.
But Wood ruled earlier this week that she would not force City Hall to change its proposal, writing the city has a “significant government interest” in controlling the expected crowds for safety and security.
“This falls well short of a First Amendment violation,” Wood wrote. “As such, the alternative parade route represents an adequate alternative channel of communication.”
The sticking point then moved to the issue over the planned rallies.
For weeks, Abudayyeh has described plans to host pro-Palestinian speeches in both Union Park and Park 578 in front of a protest crowd he most recently estimated will include 25,000 people.
In their nine-page motion for an injunction, the activist groups say the real motive for the last-minute, “made-up process” was to try to silence their protests against the Israeli military action in Gaza and other concerns.