I’ve been feeling sort of stuck and lost and hopeless ever since the shooting of Mike Brown this summer. I’ve spent nights awake watching the protests unfold over twitter and seeing how the police in Ferguson responded. My schedule is crazy and I was never free to attend a vigil after his death. I was speechless when Darren Wilson was pronounced free of charges. After this week’s non-indictment of the cop responsible for Eric Garner’s death, I felt like I wanted to scream. And suddenly, I found myself free on a night of a Chicago peaceful protest. I was one of the first people to congregate, and I bet I was on all the local news channels (there were a lot of cameras. Also, a lot of helicopters and police everywhere). We took to the streets, stopping traffic and chanting. We laid down in the intersection of Roosevelt and Wabash, right before the Bears game at Soldier Field. Throughout the night, the numbers in the protest grew by the thousands, and proceeded to shut down the expressway and Lake Shore Drive, among other things. I was only a part of the protest for the first hour, but they carried on throughout the night, covering some serious ground.
I feel like this is an important time in our country and our history. I feel like we can’t be silent right now.
Here are some photos of my experience.
