The Chicago cops in riot gear lined up outside the 19th District police station, where a motorcade of vans, sedans and SUVs with flashing blue lights waited on Addison St. Two blocks east of the Billy Williams and Ron Santo statues outside Wrigley Field, it was impossible to stick to sports or compartmentalize this in some distant part of a city on edge.
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The Cubs were supposed to play the Reds on June 1 at the Friendly Confines. But COVID-19 has shut down professional sports all around the world and now American cities are boiling over after the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.
People walking along Sheffield Ave. held homemade signs that read “BLACK LIVES MATTER” and “POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY.” Workers boarded up bars on Clark St. as if they were bracing for a hurricane. There was the sound of sirens instead of the roar from 40,000 fans.
One stop south on the Red Line, protest organizer Tatyana Chante addressed the crowd on a mobile mic system near the CTA train station on Belmont Ave. Thousands of people, according to estimates, would march through Boystown and Uptown and onto Lake Shore Drive on Monday night, delivering their message loud and clear on the North Side.
“Who the fuck is angry?” Chante said. “Who the fuck is tired? Who is tired of seeing our black brothers and sisters and siblings shot senselessly and killed with a fucking knee? I am tired.”
Protest organizer Tatyana Chante speaks to hundreds of people near the Belmont L station before marching north on Halsted. pic.twitter.com/0aWKpHc0sr
— Scott Powers (@ByScottPowers) June 1, 2020
In Chante’s announcement on Facebook, she wrote, “This is a PEACEFUL PROTEST. Anyone caught throwing things, antagonizing police/protestors, using hate speech, etc. WILL BE ASKED TO LEAVE. This means that everyone in the crowd must hold each other accountable and CALL IT OUT if you see any of this happening. As a Black person, if (violence) erupts, we will be the first to get hurt; you are risking the safety of everyone. We are NOT here to destroy property, we are here to honor Black lives and shine a light on the injustices of a system that allows white supremacy to thrive.”
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Right now, there are 95 homes in Lakeview listed on Redfin for at least $1 million. As helicopters buzzed overhead, people rode bicycles, walked dogs and pushed strollers, seemingly oblivious to all the tensions. On the sidewalk, there were also anti-Trump messages written and “BLACK LIVES MATTER” painted at the corner of Roscoe and Lakewood. Chante addressed a crowd that was mostly filled with white people.
“The fucking thing (is) the reason that we can all stand right here, right now in Lakeview is because this is a white neighborhood,” Chante said. “This is mostly a white group that we have right now. And the cops are going to protect those white protesters that are here with us and the white residents that live in this neighborhood. So I’m asking all the white people here, you need to protect all of the black people in this crowd right now. Because (the) first time that anything violent starts happening during this protest, do you know who the first people they’re going to run to? Us. And not even me, I got white skin privilege. It’s going to be my darker siblings who are at risk. So, protect them at all costs the most.”
Protestors moved peacefully through Lakeview and Wrigleyville on Monday evening. (Scott Powers / The Athletic)
Protesters, nearly all wearing masks, first lined up on each side of Belmont, cheering for cars that honked in support and chanting:
“Black lives matter!”
“No racist police, no justice, no peace!”
“Say his name” or “Say her name,” which was followed by the names George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Laquan McDonald.
“Hands up, don’t shoot!”
“I can’t breathe!”
After Chante took the mic around 5:15 p.m., the crowd gathered around her in the middle of Belmont and closed off the street. She asked them to kneel and hold a moment of silence for the memory of Floyd, who died last week when a Minneapolis police officer suffocated him with a knee to the neck, a horrific image captured on video.
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Earlier in the day, Cubs outfielder Jason Heyward talked about his experiences as a black man in America on “Waddle & Silvy,” the ESPN 1000 radio show.
“It’s sad to see, but I feel like this is a broken record,” he said. “I’m 30 years old now. Growing up in McDonough, Georgia, my dad is from Beaufort, South Carolina, my mom is from Queens, New York.
“My dad would always share things with my brother and I about how we need to be careful, how we need to be aware of how the world is going to look at us. He didn’t do that just to do it. That wasn’t something he was proud of having to do and having to explain. But it was something from experience that he could take and know that he went to one of the first integrated schools in South Carolina, integrated movie theaters, having separate bathrooms, things like that.”
Cubs outfielder Jason Heyward grew up outside of Atlanta, where his father warned him about the dangers of being black in America. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune / TNS via Getty Images)
“In 1989, I was born (and) right around that time my parents were living in New York,” Heyward said. “That was the time of (the) documentary ‘When They See Us’ (about) the five African American kids that were framed for doing something wrong (in) Central Park when they weren’t the ones that did it. Bringing it back home to the point of it feels like a broken record and we’re watching a rerun, I feel like these things continue to happen over and over and over again. And you have people continuously and helplessly trying to find a solution.”
Teammates listen when Heyward speaks because he leads by example and chooses his words carefully. Baseball isn’t always the most progressive sport, but White Sox stars Tim Anderson and Lucas Giolito spoke eloquently about racial injustice and the power of protesting.
The Bears and Blackhawks released official statements while the Bulls issued a joint statement from team president/chief operating officer Michael Reinsdorf and Bulls Charities president Nancy Reinsdorf. Blackhawks forward Zack Smith and captain Jonathan Toews also posted messages on social media.
Toews, who has 171,000 Instagram followers, wrote a lengthy post that included a recent viral video that has been described as “Generations of pain.”
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“I can’t pretend for a second that I know what it feels like to walk in a black man’s shoes,” Toews wrote. “However, seeing the video of George Floyd’s death and the violent reaction across the country moved me to tears. It has pushed me to think, how much pain are black people and other minorities really feeling? What have Native American people dealt with in both Canada and US? What is it really like to grow up in their world? Where am I ignorant about the privileges that I may have that others don’t?”
Bars and storefronts were boarded up near Wrigley Field. (Patrick Mooney / The Athletic)
At 8 p.m., phones buzzed with an emergency alert: The CTA would be suspending all bus and train services from 9:30 p.m. until 6 a.m. Tuesday. The citywide curfew remained in effect from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., except for the essential workers during a pandemic.
By 8:52 p.m., @GoWithStevie posted a video on Twitter of peaceful protesters kneeling at every corner of Clark and Addison, chanting in front of the Wrigley Field marquee: “This is what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like!”
— The Athletic’s Ed Malyon contributed to this report.
(Photo: Scott Powers / The Athletic)