Protest march reaches the perimeter of Republican convention site

A few blocks from the security fence surrounding the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, hundreds of protesters gathered, advocating for the rights of Palestinians, immigrants, women, people of color and LGBTQ people. They came representing groups as varied as “proud Democrats” and “anarchists of Wisconsin” to gather in Red Arrow Park for a rally against Republican policies and Donald Trump, who will become the GOP presidential nominee later this week.

On a humid day with temperatures nearing 90 degrees, rally-goers took shelter in the shade while speakers onstage railed against “white Christian nationalism,” U.S. support for Israel, attacks on reproductive rights, Republican plans for mass deportation of immigrants and Trump himself. Over 120 organizations participated in the Coalition to March on the RNC, which began planning the protest two years ago when discussions began about bringing the convention to Milwaukee.

Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of the immigrant workers’ rights group Voces de la Frontera Action, began her remarks by condemning political violence after the shooting at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania Saturday that injured Trump and resulted in the deaths of both the shooter and firefighter Corey Comperatore.

Neumann-Ortiz also said that “it’s undeniable” that Trump’s rhetoric has “contributed to a climate of increased violence and legitimized hate crimes by white nationalists.” Neumann-Ortiz condemned Trump’s actions during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, his followers’ calls to hang then-Vice President Mike Pence for refusing to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and “hateful and dehumanizing rhetoric” targeting immigrants during the 2024 campaign, which she connected to an increase in violent crimes against people of color and immigrants.

Anti-immigrant rhetoric led to “tragedies like those here in Milwaukee with the fatal shooting of Hmong parents and a Puerto Rican father by a neighbor in their apartment complex in front of their children,” Neumann-Ortiz said during a press conference before the march. Other examples, she said, included “when a man threw acid on the face of a U.S. citizen from Peru, saying he was illegal, and had to go back. Or nationally, with the deadliest attack on Latinos in modern history in El Paso, when a white nationalist carried out a mass shooting killing 23 Latinos.”

March participants from across the country said they felt that Trump’s rhetoric, adopted by the Republican Party, is a threat to their lives and health.

“Defeating the Republican agenda is a matter of life and death for working and oppressed people,” said Kodi Guillory, a middle school science teacher from Chicago. “We have to protect ourselves in this country and we have to stand in solidarity with oppressed people around the world.”

Victoria Hinckley, an organizer with Students for a Democratic Society said she is concerned about attacks on reproductive health since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

“The Dobbs decision was a direct result of Trump’s presidency, in fact he takes pride in this,” said Hinckley during the press conference. “Women and students around the country have been suffering since the Dobbs decision and SDS is dedicated to fighting for abortion and reproductive rights, until it is readily available for every person in America.”

At the west end of the park, a small group of pro-Trump counter protesters stood with signs depicting aborted fetuses and the Prophet Muhammad wearing a dress. A man sporting a red Make America Great Again hat yelled into a megaphone, “Watch out for the queers!” while a man with a pro-abortion rights sign yelled back into his own megaphone, “Abortion is health care!”

At Red Arrow Park, police officers from the Columbus, Ohio Police Department, wearing “dialogue team” vests, wandered about, conversing with rally-goers. News reporters from outlets all over the world paced in the heat as preparations for the march were underway. Rally organizers kept the crowd animated with chants, speeches from coalition members and free water distributed by the volunteer street marshals and medics. Some organizations pitched their own candidates for President, including Claudia de la Cruz, who is running for the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

Leaning against a railing, Paul Doro, a high school English teacher from Fox Point, watched the rally wearing a “Great Lakes” hat and shirt.

“It’s a resource we can’t take for granted,” he said of the world’s largest supply of fresh water in the Upper Midwest. “I think one party cares about [that resource] more than the other.”

Doro said he is also worried about Republican efforts to ban books in schools in his district.

“There’s things we’re not allowed to teach,” he said. “The largely white kids I teach in the suburbs won’t be exposed to things we want them to be.”

By noon, the crowd of protesters had swelled to more than 1,000 and people began to march down Water Street. With drums pounding, the crowd chanted an array of protest standards, including declaring that Milwaukee’s streets are “our streets.”

Outside the Riverside Theater, operated by the Pabst Theater Group, protesters chanted, “Get up, get down, Milwaukee is a union town.”

The front of the pack, dominated by pro-Palestine protesters, chanted against both Trump and President Joe Biden, saying “No Donald, No Joe, genocide has got to go.”

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the peace group CODEPINK, said a common thread connecting the disparate groups that joined the Coalition to March on the RNC was confronting militarism.

“I see the people who are here who are calling for money to be spent on issues that help people’s lives and address this climate crisis that we’re dealing with, recognize that we’re spending like a $1 trillion on the military, and we’re keeping the war in Ukraine going, and we’re supplying Israel with all these horrific weapons, and this isn’t doing the people any good,” Benjamin said. “Neither of these two parties represent the people,” she added. “They are corporate interests whether it’s the interests of the military industrial complex, or the pharmaceutical industry, or the interests of the lobby groups, but not the interests of the people.”

Other rally-goers and organizers also expressed discontent with both the Democrats and the Republicans.

After a loop around Water Street, the march turned toward the convention site at Fiserv Forum, where law enforcement officers from around the country and U.S. Secret Service guarded the perimeter. Near the gates, the crowd ran into a small group of anti-abortion protesters.

Dr. Paul Zietz, a physician who attended the rally to protest the war in Gaza, said that he believes Trump brought together the groups that joined the march from all over the country to make common cause. “I think he is a symptom of our broken constitution,” Zietz told Wisconsin Examiner, adding, “a part of America has died.”

“Facism rises very quickly. It’s intoxicating. He’s a strong man … he can wrap people under his spell,” Zietz said. “We had to come in here and say that the story out of Milwaukee is not the coronation of a dictator.” Instead, he said, the story was the protest and the “declaration of interdependence” among the many groups that joined the march.

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