Another protest against President Donald Trump is planned for Oak Park this week.
This protest is being planned by Congregations Networking for Social Justice, the Oak Park inter-faith group responsible for planning the Hands Off! protest which drew thousands of demonstrators to downtown Oak Park in April as well as the No Kings protest in June. It is set for July 17 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Longfellow Park, organizers told Wednesday Journal. Longfellow Park is at Ridgeland Avenue and Jackson Boulevard.
“Our moral outrage continues unabated,” said Cynthia Breunlin of Congregations Networking for Social Justice.
This protest in Oak Park, like the previous Hands Off! And No Kings demonstrations in the village, is part of a nationwide series of protests against the presidential administration. This week’s series of protests have been dubbed the “Good Trouble Lives On” rallies, in honor of famed congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis.
Lewis died on July 17, 2020, becoming the last of the “big six” leaders of the American civil rights movement to pass away. He is associated with using the phrase “good trouble” to describe his activism over his many decades in politics and political action and he used the phrase frequently as a call to action for his younger allies, according to the Library of Congress.
Lewis was one of the most outspoken critics of President Trump’s first term in the White House. He rose to national prominence in his early 20s as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, speaking alongside Dr. Martin Luther King at the March on Washington in 1963.
National protest organizers expect more than 1,500 communities to participate in the protest, including demonstrations in downtown Chicago near Daley Center Plaza and in other suburban communities including Park Ridge, Naperville and Arlington Heights.