Ja’mal Green. You’d probably never heard of him until Friday, March 11. He was the man that organised the mass protest that shut down the Trump rally in Chicago. How did he manage to pull it off?
Well, Ja’mal Green is a black activist and Bernie Sanders supporter in Chicago. Green made a call to arms on his personal Facebook asking for people to gather to protest against a planned Donald Trump speech in the city.
Friday night, hundreds of protesters invaded Trump’s rally while thousands more marched outside, leading the candidate to abruptly cancel the event due to safety concerns. The night spun out from there, as angry Trump fans clashed with protesters, who saw the shutdown as a victory.
Protesters interrupt virtually every Trump speech. But what made Chicago different was the scale and the organization behind the effort. Hundreds of young, largely black and brown people poured in from across the city, taking over whole sections of the arena and bracing for trouble.
The supporters chanted “Ber-Nie, Ber-Nie, Ber-Nie”, as well as “We gon’ be alright” the hook from Kendrick Lamar’s song “Alright.”
A Twitter account in support of Bernie Sanders “People For Bernie” wished to remind everybody that this gathering wasn’t by chance, but was a concerted process organized by individuals.
Remember the #TrumpRally wasn't just luck. It took organizers from dozens of organizations and thousands of people to pull off. Great work.
— People For Bernie (@People4Bernie) March 12, 2016
On Monday night, there was a meeting. The lecture hall, meant to hold 100 students, overflowed with representatives of student groups from the Black Student Union to Fearless and Undocumented. They decided they would march outside the rally to protest.
A Facebook page was set up to organize the rally, in which 11,000 people said they would be attending and a further 19,000 had clicked maybe. The page outlined the gameplan: buy tickets, meet up and then protest peacefully.
With just four days to plan, organizers said more than 1,000 students turned out for the march, along with thousands of community members.
Meanwhile, on the night of the Trump rally, organizers who planned to disrupt the event from inside had designated multiple rallying points around the venue to avoid arousing suspicion of authorities with large congregations.
As activists slipped into the lines, they were told to blend in with the crowd and act normal and natural.
Inside, 100 protesters received coveted orange wristbands allowing them access to the floor. Even as organizers tried to maintain the status quo, Trump fans began to instigate aggression and police began removing people. Secret Service agents recognized Ja’mal Green and ejected him but he quickly changed into a friend’s hoodie and slipped back in unnoticed.
The plan was to wait until Trump had started speaking before beginning the protest, but word soon got round that the rally had been canceled. There would be no Trump speech. This was when “it all went crazy” according to Green, and everything kicked off between both protesters and Trump supporters.
It remains to be seen whether the success of Green’s rally will spur on other cities to protest against Donald Trump speaking in their backyards.
Featured image is a screencap from video.
