Chicago Protest Began as a Fake Facebook Event

CHICAGO, IL - Wednesday’s protests in Chicago had their origin in a New York City dorm room a week earlier. As a joke.

It was New York University student Rachel Brown who created the Facebook event, “CITYWIDE WALKOUT! rahm emanuel and anita alvarez’s resignation party!” last week, according to The Chicago Reader.

The Reader tells the story of how the joke page progressed into an “hours-long march” that halted traffic and forced a helicopter presence and police to carry wooden batons as they became surrounded with those calling for the resignations of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez.

Hundreds took part in the protest. 

Brown, an 18-year-old from Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood, became angry when she heard about the 2014 shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by police officer Jason Van Dyke and by how Emanuel and Alvarez handled the case.

“I think he’s trash,” Brown said of Emanuel. “He needs to stop being mayor.”

But David Beltran, a Chicago musician, jumped in with the idea to turn the fake Facebook event - something Brown admits she creates quite often - into an actual planned protest.

Soon after, more than 1,700 had confirmed to take part in the protest, which began around noon on Wednesday outside the Daley Center in The Loop and spurred other, smaller protests throughout the city all day long.

more via The Chicago Reader