UPDATE: ACTIVATE:CHI march and rally cancelled. www.windycitytimes.com/lgbt/rally-cancelled/68818.html .
The grassroots activist organization ACTIVATE:CHI announced June 19 that it is collaborating with a number of local organizations and businesses, among them Chicago Pride and Northalsted Business Alliance, for a Sunday, June 28, march that promises to focus on members of the Black transgender community.
Titled "Black Trans Lives Matter: A BLM Pride Protest," the seven-mile march will kick off in Uptown at 11 a.m. and proceed to a rally in Grant Park, presumably following much of the route of the Chicago Pride Parade, which was cancelled for 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Organizers said in a statement, "The current political, social and economic climate, coupled with the clear inability of our government to protect the most vulnerable members of our communities, spurred the organizers of Chicago Pride to connect with ACTIVATE:CHI to reinstate this year's Pride as a march. The plan is to create a pro-POC LGBTQ+ march, with a specific focus on the discrimination and injustice faced by the Black Trans Community.
"We are collaborating with Black Lives Matter Chicago and stand in solidarity with their demands. Specifically, we demand the immediate reallocation of funds for the CPD budget, civilian oversight of law enforcement in Chicago and nationwide, an end to qualified immunity and the reinstatement of transgender civil rights protections in health care."
ACTIVATE:CHI describes itself as "a collective of multicultural and multigenerational community organizers initially brought together by our hunger for justice in the brutal police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Tony McDade. We seek to dismantle the racist systems oppressing our vulnerable communities through peaceful grassroots organizing."
For more information, visit activate-chi.net/initiatives/june-28th .
