The day will begin with over a dozen feeder marches (see http://chicagoactions.org/02-feedermarches.html for times and locations) leading into a 3 PM to 4:30 PM rally at Union Park, at Washington Blvd. and Ashland Avenue.
The Union Park rally will feature Congressman Luis Gutierrez, radio personality Cliff Kelley; Arab American activist Suzanne Adely; Illinois AFL-CIO vice president Elwood Flowers; anti-war activist Christina Martinez; Iraq military veteran Eric Ahlberg; Juan Torres, whose soldier son was kiled in Afghanistan; Palestinian American activist Gihad Ali; Abdul Malik Muajhid, chair of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago; Akua Njeri, the widow of assasinated Black Panther Party chairman Fred Hampton; and Anita Rico of Pueblo Sin Fronteras, whose group played a central role in organizing the mass march for immigrant rights in Chicago on March 10th.
Bus and convenient "el" transportation will then take protesters over to a "Festival of Rights" rally in the near north area.
At 6 PM the "Festival of Rights" rally at Walton & State Streets will be emceed by the Gay Liberation Network's Andy Thayer, and will feature Alderman Rick Munoz, civil rights attorney Stan Willis, and anti-Minuteman activist Sabah Khan.
At 7 PM there will be a "Festival of Rights" march down Michigan Avenue, led by a series of floats, including one put together by the Gay Liberation Network and Chicago CodePINK!. After almost 3 years' legal battle with the City of Chicago, peace demonstrators have finally won the right to march on Michigan Avenue. On March 20, 2003 at the start of the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq, the City took revenge on anti-war protesters by arresting over 800 at the corner of Michigan and Chicago Avenues in the City's largest mass arrest in history. It was also the largest FALSE arrest in the city's history -- ALL of the hundreds of charges were dropped in a manner indicating innocence.
Since then, the City has declared Michigan and other major streets veritable "no free speech zones" for anti-war protesters, going so far as to arrest GLN's Andy Thayer and other anti-war organizers last year when they attempted to hold a press conference on Michigan Avenue sidewalk.
This year, the growing unpopularity of the war, a tighter legal case developed with the help of the National Lawyers Guild and the American Civil Liberties Union, plus a mayor whose scandal-ridden regime is fighting for its political (and legal) life, forced the City to reluctantly grant a permit for Michigan Avenue to anti-war forces for the first time since the war began.
Please join GLN this Saturday -- look for our literature table in Union Park (topped by a yellow GLN banner), and later join us as we march down Michigan Avenue beneath the same pink anti-war banners that we marched in front of the White House with this past September!
