Thousands of protesters marched in Chicago on Monday as the Democratic National Convention began nearby, an early test of the city’s security preparations and of Vice President Kamala Harris’s attempts to project a sense of intraparty unity.
Protesters from a coalition of more than 200 groups, which represented a range of liberal causes but were united in anger over the Biden administration’s approach to Israel and Gaza, walked and chanted through the streets on Monday afternoon after an hourslong rally at a park.
The crowd appeared to number in the low thousands, smaller than what organizers had expected. Several protesters said they hoped to influence Ms. Harris and the Democrats to cut off aid to Israel and to do more to stop the war in Gaza.
“It is no longer good enough just to stand against Trump,” said Ellie Feyans-McCool, who traveled from Minnesota to attend the march, and who said that she had not yet decided whether she would support Ms. Harris or some other candidate. “You have to do good.”
No one was arrested as of midafternoon, according to Don Terry, a Chicago police spokesman. When a group of about a dozen people with Israeli flags marched around the park, a small contingent of pro-Palestinian protesters broke off and marched alongside them. Police officers, who were in the area in large numbers but had mostly kept their distance until that point, kept the two groups separated.
That march, expected to be one of the larger protests of the convention, was an early test of Chicago’s preparations. City officials, frustrated by comparisons to the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, have sought to convey a sense of calm and confidence in recent weeks.
Mayor Brandon Johnson, a first-term Democrat, has emphasized his own experience leading demonstrations with the Chicago Teachers Union. He has insisted that the city is ready to a host a safe convention where protesters can gather peacefully but violence will not be tolerated.
Another protest on Sunday evening on downtown’s Michigan Avenue unfolded with hundreds of demonstrators marching down Michigan Avenue as they called for the protection of abortion and L.G.B.T.Q. rights, and peace in Gaza.
“Our officers responded exactly the way we trained them to respect First Amendment activity,” the police superintendent, Larry Snelling, said of the Sunday protest.
One 23-year-old woman was arrested nearby on Sunday and charged with defacement of property and obstructing a police officer, he said. The woman was not part of a march, he said.
The protest march on Monday had been in the works for months, and members of the coalition planning the event sued Chicago in federal court over the route. Though the activists won some concessions, including permission to have a stage and sound system at a rally before their march, they remained at odds with city leaders over the exact route.
Protesters held signs with messages like “Free Palestine!” They planned to march within “sight and sound” of the United Center, the main convention hall.
Organizers acknowledged that the crowd on Monday was not as big as they had expected, but said they hope that more protesters would converge on Chicago during the week. Another large protest was planned for Thursday, the last day of the convention.
“It’s a Monday morning, which in and of itself is not the greatest starting time, but we needed to do it because we wanted to have protesting happening as soon as the thing started,” said Hatem Abudayyeh, a spokesman for the coalition and a pro-Palestinian activist.
Many Chicago police officers, some on bicycles, lined the streets where the march was taking place, and followed the demonstrators. Some people who had attended the Sunday protest said they were taken aback by the large number of officers who lined Michigan Avenue.
“You almost see more police than marchers here — it’s overkill,” said Rabbi Brant Rosen, who leads a congregation in Chicago and was among the demonstrators on Sunday.
Unlike at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month, where protests were mostly contained to the first day, activists from different groups have announced plans to gather on every day of the Democratic convention in Chicago. Another march was expected later on Monday evening.
Alex Nelson, who lives in Chicago, planned to be at several protests this week and had taken time off from work to participate.
“My hope is that things continue to be peaceful,” she said at the Sunday protest, “and that the mayor, the governor and the police continue to allow us to demonstrate and march and exercise our First Amendment rights.”
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