La Grange Protesters March Nearly 2½ Miles

LA GRANGE, IL — Hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters marched nearly 2½ miles through La Grange and then into neighboring Countryside on Wednesday. At times, it was uncertain where the march would go.

At one point, Patrick Fulla, a La Grange police officer, walked near the front of the parade trying to figure out the route, so he could radio the information to his colleagues. He figured Tosin Olowu, a recent Riverside Brookfield High School graduate, may have the information he needed. She was at the very front of the parade, so Fulla asked her, "Who is in charge here?" She replied, "Everyone's in charge." He said he just wanted to make sure everyone was safe.

As it turned out, the parade ended at Brainard Avenue and Plainfield Road, just beyond La Grange village limits in Countryside. The demonstrators sat down in the intersection for a few minutes, then walked back.

The event began at Village Hall at 4:30 p.m. After several speeches, hundreds kneeled for nine minutes in silence, representing the amount of time a Minneapolis officer kneeled on George Floyd's neck before he died. During that time, police stopped traffic on La Grange Road. Some of the only sounds were cicadas and faint music from a nearby Mexican restaurant.

Afterward, Shawana McGee, a new La Grange village trustee, spoke, encouraging people to become friends with people who do not look like them. As an African American, McGee said she has been the victim of police brutality and that she was fearful when her husband, who is black, was out after dark.

"What the world needs now more than ever is love, sweet love," McGee told the crowd. "Let us leave today different than when we came here. Don't let the death of black lives be in vain."

McGee spoke to an audience made up mostly of white people, many of them in their teens and 20s. Lyons Township High School students were credited with organizing the event. One of the organizers, Taylor Lebron, who recently graduated from Lyons Township, told Patch it took a day to put together the rally and march.

The crowd was bigger than the one that congregated a day earlier at four corners of a major intersection in downtown Elmhurst. In Elmhurst, many businesses boarded up in case the protest resulted in riots. Instead, the Elmhurst event ended peacefully before sundown.

In La Grange, businesses did not board up. The village was alerted to the demonstration a day before, and officers stayed at the fringes of the protest. Officers opened up intersections for the demonstrators wherever the parade went. It went through downtown, passing the La Grange Police Department, then to Brainard, which the marchers took until they reached Countryside.

The marchers passed many houses, where families watched, often holding up their cameras. A toddler stood in amazement with her mother.

The marchers chanted nearly the entire time. Among the chants were "Black Lives Matter" and "No justice. No peace. No racist police." And they repeated Floyd's last words, "I can't breathe."

Olowu ended the event at Brainard and Plainfield by saying, "We can't let them burn the country to the ground." And she said they must work so that there was no more racist police.

Then everyone dispersed. Many had to walk the nearly 2½ miles back to downtown La Grange. Others were picked up by family on the way.

As one of the out-of-town protesters walked by the large houses on Brainard, he said, "These are like the houses you see in the movies."