A Chicago councilman is involved with a group planning to disrupt the Democratic National Committee meeting in August, reminiscent of the infamous protests that rocked the city in 1968.
Over 450 far-left activists attended the “March on DNC 2024” meeting, at which 75 different organizations planned how to disrupt the DNC convention scheduled for August, the Free Press reported. At the event, speakers outlined how to best carry out illegal actions, burned an American flag, and conspired over how to recreate the events of 1968, in which 10,000 demonstrators clashed with police while protesting the Vietnam War, resulting in 668 arrests and hundreds of injuries.
One of the most alarming speakers was Byron Sigcho-Lopez, a Democrat elected to the Chicago City Council.
“We are committed to fight back. We’re not going to be intimidated,” he shouted. “Let’s see us on the streets. Democracy is defended in the streets.”
“Everybody knows what is gonna happen in both conventions: Trump and Biden — bad and worse,” Sigcho-Lopez added.
Though the councilman spoke at the meeting, a spokesperson for him told the Free Press that he was not present when a speaker burned the American flag, in honor of Airman Aaron Bushnell, who self-immolated outside the Israeli Embassy in protest of the United States’s stance on the war in Gaza.
The conference isn’t the councilman’s first brush with controversy. The month prior, he stood in front of City Hall calling for a crowd to “march on the DNC, with or without permits.”
Also at the meeting, Joe Iosbaker, a leader of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, gave an ominous warning to the DNC about the conference in August.
“Have you heard that the Democratic National Convention is coming to Chicago?” he asked. “Are we going to let ’em come here without a protest? This is Chicago, goddamn it — we’ve got to give them a 1968 kind of welcome.”
Sigcho-Lopez’s fellow council members are split on how to handle the situation. An effort by council moderates to remove him last month was met with failure in a 16-29 vote.
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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) both defended Sigcho-Lopez on free speech grounds.
“Calling the president names, saying that we shouldn’t have the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, attacking or at least standing in front of a burned American flag and in front of a sign essentially referring to people as if they’re in favor of genocide who clearly are not, I think are all things I disagree with but I will defend to the death his right to say those things,” Pritzker said in April. “I wouldn’t have done it and I wouldn’t encourage anyone to do it, but it’s his right to do it.”