Black Lives Matter rally scheduled for Portage Park and Jefferson Park
Courtesy of Facebook
Chicago’s Portage Park and Jefferson Park community is scheduled to be the next site for a rally/march to support the Black Lives Matter movement on June 12 starting at 5:00 p.m. The action will begin with a rally outside of 45th Ward Ald. Jim Gardiner’s ward office located at 5425 W. Lawrence Ave. and then proceed to the Chicago Police Department’s 16th District precinct at 5151 N. Milwaukee. To ensure safety, masks are strongly recommended to be worn.
The rally/march is in response to his death of George Floyd at the hands of four Minneapolis police officers on May 25, a number of protests have been held worldwide to demonstrate support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Cornell Bar, one of the organizers of this protest, responded to questions about bringing children to the rally/march and made it clear - this will be a peaceful protest.
“As we stated in the original post, this is absolutely a peaceful protest,” said Bar. “Anyone inciting violence, using hate speech or causing/attempting to cause destruction will be told to leave.”
Another organizer for Friday’s rally/march, Brian J. Solem, addressed questions about the lack of diversity within the protest and how a previous protest in Lincoln Square received a lot of pushback because of the lack of Black organizations participating and speaking.
“We definitely see racial diversity as a gap in the leadership of this grassroots event,” Solem said. “We urge you all to help us crowdsource so we can welcome Black voices and Black leadership to strengthen our gathering on Friday.”