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By Joe Iosbaker
Chicago, IL - The announcement of Donald Trump’s visit to the
University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) came one week before his
scheduled, March 11 appearance. Within minutes, there was a Facebook
page announcing plans to protest. There was also a moveon.org petition
calling on the administration at UIC to cancel the rally.
By later that afternoon, over 5000 people signed up to protest, and by later that night, 50,000 had signed the petition.
The gathering of student leaders on Mar. 7 wasn’t full of movement
veterans. There were 15 or 20 members of Students for Justice in
Palestine, who had experience winning a vote in the student government
for divestment this semester. But during the meeting, when the question
was raised, “How many people here have been to a protest?” 20 of the 100
students present raised their hands. Then the question was asked, “How
many have organized a protest?” only a few hands went up.
One of the hands was that of Ethan Viets-Van Lear. Viets-Van Lear is a
member of Black Youth Project 100, and was part of the We Charge
Genocide delegation that went to Switzerland in October, 2014. There,
they testified to the United Nations Committee Against Torture about the
Chicago Police Department.
Cassie Robledo, a member of the College Democrats, said, “My first
protest was when I was 12. My dad and uncles are members of the Steel
Workers Union. They took me to the megamarch for immigrant rights.” But
the protest against Trump was the first time she was organizing anything
like this.
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Source: FightBack!News.com
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