Apr 5

Apr 5 Mass Mobilization

Chicago, Demonstrations, Donald J. Trump, Performance, Protest, Public Declarations

“Calling out around the world
Are you ready for a brand new beat
Summer’s here and the time is right
For dancing in the street

They’re dancing in Chicago (dancing in the street)
Down in New Orleans (dancing in the street)
In New York City (dancing in the street)
”

— Martha and Vandellas, Dancing in the Streets (1964)

“Come and join the revolution
Get yourself the constitution
And join the revolution now
And recognise your age, it’s a teenage rampage
Turn another page on the teenage rampage now
So recognise your age, it’s a teenage rampage
Turn another page on the teenage rampage now, now, now....

They’re getting it on, ain’t doing it wrong, but they’re gonna do it, it won’t be long”

— Sweet, Teenage Rampage (1974)

“Beautiful people
You look like friends of mine
It’s about time that someone said it here and now
I make a vow that some time, somehow
I’ll have a meeting, invite everyone you know
I’ll pass out buttons for the ones who come to show”

— Melanie, Beautiful People (1969)

Chicago’s Loop served as one of more than 1,200 sites throughout the country that hosted a “Hands Off” mass mobilization against the Trump/Vance/Musk Administration today. Indivisible Chicago functioned as the umbrella organization. Other participating organizations included the Chicago Federation of Labor, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Personal PAC, the Service Employee International Union, and the Sierra Club of Illinois, with several dozen other organizations joining in the effort.

The program kicked off promptly at noon, with eight speakers filling the scheduled hour-long lineup. Unlike every other rally I have ever been attended, I did not see, nor hear a single speaker. Only after watching news clips afterwards could I confirm that there had been speeches. I suspect that was also true for many in the crowd overflowing Daley Plaza. Apparently, the audio system was not a robust one. The chatter among thousands of crowd members who could not see the speakers probably didn’t help.

The organizers apparently made a strategic decision. Speeches were not the point. Everyone present had already heard it all before, whether at other rallies, while watching cable news, or when kvetching with friends over the telephone, dinner, or coffee. Today was about putting people into the streets. The program was secondary.

“Hands off what?” you ask. The demonstrators and their signs answered that question. Hands off veterans benefits, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP funding, vaccine research, NIH grants, the Federal workforce, Gaza, the Ukrainians, USAID, universities, retirement accounts, transgender rights, LGBQ rights, immigrants, and museums and libraries.

How many people? That was the question on everyone’s minds. At about 12:30 PM, I was chatting with a relatively senior police officer, who put the number at 5,000—not an official estimate, but rather an offhand remark in a friendly conversation. Later in the day, a spokesperson for one of the organizers put the number at 30,000, clearly an inflated number. The consensus number is somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000. Everybody could agree on one thing: this was the largest demonstration that Chicago has seen in many years.

Two years ago, I spoke with a person who performs crowd estimates professionally. The take-away: arriving at an accurate estimate is an involved process, requiring the use of drones, grids, and maps. The basic approach is to overlay a grid filled with one-inch squares over an aerial photograph; count the number of people in a representative square; and then multiply that resulting count by the number of squares in the grid. While mathematical, this methodology, by itself, does not yield an accurate estimate. Adjustments must be made that factor in fountains, statues, trees, public memorials, bike racks, and other obstructions that shrink the available space, as well as for people on the periphery, including side streets, rooftops, and above-ground parking lots. Moreover, people drift in and out throughout the event, making an exact count impossible.

People who regularly encounter crowds use their own back-of-the-envelope shortcuts to estimate a crowd’s size. At one of the early pro-Palestinian marches following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack against Israel, I was speaking with a senior CPD official as the marchers headed north on Michigan Avenue toward the Chicago River. He estimated that there were 8,000 people marching—figuring 1,000 people per block, with the march stretching over eight blocks. His estimate was a personal observation—the city long ago stopped providing crowd estimates, hoping to avoid controversy and complaints over what organizers and their detractors often view as politically-charged assessments.

The officer’s number struck me as a reasonable one at the time, but his formula assumes uniform density from one demonstration to the next. In my experience, when there are lots of families, senior citizens, and inexperienced demonstrators, the pack is less dense than when angry young people predominate. Moreover, the densities are not uniform as the caterpillar lumbers its way through the streets. A formation’s density always decreases from the front to the back.

One thing is absolutely clear. Never believe the estimate that the organizer provides. As already noted, it is almost always inflated. Today, I was speaking with one veteran organizer who said he was “pissed off” by padded crowd estimates. According to him, when a group inflates attendance estimates, they lose the high ground, becoming no different than Donald Trump.

So, pick a number, any number, if you must have a number. Whatever it is, everybody agrees that there were lots of people in the streets. One veteran photojournalist claimed that Chicago hasn’t seen this large of a demonstration since the Women’s March in 2017.

To Indivisible Chicago’s credit, they apparently called an audible—somehow reducing the program length from the scheduled one hour to just over half an hour. By 12:20 PM, the police were already at the intersection of Clark and Washington, together with parade marshals and demonstrators holding the lead banners. Looking at the timestamps on my images, the march started sometime around 12:45 PM.

I had been told that the marchers would head south on Clark Street. All the photographers hoped that the route would pass under a CTA ‘L’ station platform so that they could capture what has become the “money shot” for Loop-based demonstrations. Much to everyone’s disappointment, the route was devoid of elevated platforms (except sidewalk planters), which I view as a major blunder in an otherwise perfectly executed event. The visuals always matter. That’s what the millions who did not attend a Rise-Up event yesterday saw on the 10:00 PM news. Those millions include Republican members of Congress and Trump (as if he gives a F*ck about what his fellow citizens think as he hauls in millions of dollars at Mar-a-Lago dinners).

Interestingly, the marchers turned west on Randolph from State Street, returning to Daley Plaza, rather than heading north to the plaza across the Chicago River from the Trump International Hotel. That plaza has become the de facto terminus for virtually every anti-Trump march. I was told that there were just too many people for that space. Too bad. There is nothing like a photograph showing demonstrators standing on Upper Wacker Drive flipping off Trump’s steel and glass monument to his ego.

Someday Trump will sell that building. I suspect there will be lots of people gathered on the street to witness the gaudy letters coming down.

As for today’s participants: The group skewed older, although over lunch afterwards at Elephant and Castle, another photographer disagreed with that assessment. After reviewing my images, I stand by it.

Whatever the crowd’s demographic makeup, everyone did a fantastic job with their signage. It would be difficult to pick today’s winner because so many were colorful, filled with clever slogans, verbiage, and graphics.

The question on everyone’s minds, particularly after their retirement accounts took it in the shorts this past week: “When do we do it again?” As the weather warms and Trump continues on his irrational, vindictive, and destructive course, there will be more rallies and marches. I offer the following suggestion to whoever organizes the next one. Butler Field and the Petrillo Music Shell are the ideal location, providing much more space to spread out and an elevated platform for the speakers.

[Click on an Image to Enlarge It. The Images Are Not Necessarily in Exact Chronological Order]

**Tom, Jeff, and Dana: Three Grumpy Old People**

**He Had Many Good Reasons for Showing Up**

**After Friday, Everyone with a 401K Could Relate**

**Reminding Everyone About Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Idiocy**

**Up on the Picasso Where the Kids Normally Play During Demonstrations**

**". . . Republi-cons Are Putin's Little Bitches"**

**Pope Francis Makes an Appearance Despite Doctor's Orders**

**Overflowing Daley Plaza Onto Dearborn**

**"The Power of the People is Stronger Than the Perps in Power"**

**It Doesn't Get Anymore Disgusting Than This**

**A Coordinated Look, But Each Carries a Slightly Different Message**

**Must Have Come from a Smoke-Filled Room**

**"Can We Just Get to the Part Where He Shoots Himself in his Bunker"**

**Protecting the Marchers from an Attack**

**Signaling that the Country is In Distress**

**They Were at Last Saturday's 'Tesla Takedown,' Or at Least Their Signs Were**

**Standing Above the Crowd for Her Rights**

**For Over Half the Country, This is the Most Hated Man in America**

**Demanding that Trump Keeps His Hands Off A Lot of Stuff**

**Must Have Been a Fan of Samuel Arnold's *Juvenile Amusements* as a Kid**

**Pro-Palestinian Forces Making an Appearance**

**Things Are Getting Squirrely Out There**

**Discarded, But Still Sending an Important Message**

**Author, Author, Author (in the Background)**

Copyright 2025, Jack B. Siegel (except the first two images in the post, which are copyrighted 2024). All Rights Reserved. Do Not Alter, Copy, Display, Distribute, Download, Duplicate, or Reproduce Without the Prior Written Consent of the Copyright Holder.