Overview of Protest Activity Around the 2024 Democratic National Convention

As part of its regular work tracking political protest activity across the United States, the Crowd Counting Consortium (CCC) closely followed events around this year’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago. We recorded more than 40 protest actions directly related to the DNC in that city from Sunday through Thursday, most but not all of them centered on opposition to genocide in Gaza. The crowd sizes at those events ranged from just a few people to a few thousand or more. Police arrested more than 70 people in total, almost all of them at a Monday-afternoon march and a Tuesday-evening protest. Those two actions also led to an unknown number of injuries, most of them suffered by protesters or press, and most of those during arrest or detention. We saw no reports of significant property damage.

The Protests

Let’s start with a summary of the events themselves.

On Sunday, we logged three events directly related to the DNC.

• The largest one, led by the Bodies Outside of Unjust Laws coalition, co-emphasized calls for abortion access and queer and trans liberation with calls for Palestinian liberation, and we saw crowd estimates for it that ranged from “hundreds” to “more than 500” to “up to 1,000” to “more than 1,000” to “thousands.” No arrests occurred.
• We did not see information on crowd size for a disruption of a DNC welcome party at the Navy Pier at which two people were reportedly arrested.
• We saw no after-action information about a rally/festival organized by the Poor People’s Army.

On Monday, we logged six directly related events, if you count an attempted encampment at Union Park after the March on the DNC event had wrapped as a separate event (as we do, because it appeared to have been organized independently).

• For the first of the March on the DNC 2024 coalition’s big actions, we saw estimates ranging from “thousands” or “a few thousand” to “about 17,000” and “about 20,000.” The latter two were clear outliers, however. Virtually all the other estimates we saw, including ones from police and independent journalists on the scene, landed in the 2,000-5,000 range. Police arrested 13 people after a group that split from the main march broke through the outer layer of temporary security fencing around the United Center (and despite march marshals’ attempts to prevent them from doing so). Several arrestees suffered injuries, and four were hospitalized.
• We did not get clear information on crowd size for the short-lived encampment at Union Park after the main march had wrapped.
• Estimates for a Poor People’s Army rally and march that day were “about 100” and “300,” and one person — an organizer with a child in a stroller — was arrested there.
• We saw two separate disruptions inside the DNC venue that day, one involving a handful of people unfurling a large banner that read “Stop arming Israel” and the other an unknown number of people who turned their backs on President Biden as he gave his speech to the floor.
• A morning run from Buckingham Fountain in support of a ceasefire in Gaza reportedly drew seven people.

In our sources, we saw reports of 14 more DNC-related events on Tuesday.

• The action that drew the most attention that day was the Make It Great Like ’68 protest outside Accenture Tower, where Israel’s consulate general for the Midwest has its offices. We saw crowd estimates that ranged from “about 50” (from early in the event) to “approximately 150” and “as many as 200” for this one. Whatever the precise number, police greatly outnumbered protesters at the scene, and they kettled and then mass-arrested participants after a small group tried to push its way through a police line blocking their intended march route. Police arrested 59 people at this event, including several credentialed journalists, and an unknown number of protesters and reporters suffered injuries in the process, with several of them requiring medical attention. According to CPD, two officers also suffered minor injuries here as well.
• An evening interfaith vigil at Montrose Beach Harbor in remembrance of Palestinians killed in Gaza drew “120” to “over 200” participants.
• The Israeli American Council supported a daylong art installation near the United Center called Hostage Square that reportedly drew “hundreds,” including members of the Christian Zionist group Generation Zion.
• Another pro-ceasefire run from Buckingham Fountain drew a dozen participants.
• Protesters disrupted U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s live appearance on Late Night with Colbert.
• Anti-genocide protesters disrupted Tim Walz’s appearance at a gathering of the DNC Women’s Caucus at McCormick Place Convention Center.
• Protesters calling for an arms embargo on Israel and an end to genocide in Gaza disrupted an Axios Media-led gathering at RPM Events.
• Protesters disrupted a private event led by Agudath Israel of America that reportedly included a number of Democratic elected officials.
• An evening noise demonstration outside a post-convention party at the Morton Salt Shed reportedly involved “several dozen” or “around 50” protesters.
• At least three individuals or groups took to the stage at Park #578, the city-designated “free speech” zone during the convention: one organization seeking payment of reparations for Black Americans, a nurse practitioner calling for racial equity in health care, and a family from Hawaii looking to save whales.
• A small group supporting Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s soon-to-be-suspended bid for the presidency roamed downtown with flags and signs.
• Activists allegedly put maggots in the breakfast buffet at the Fairbanks Hotel, where some DNC delegates were staying.

Wednesday brought another 10 DNC-related events, according to our sources.

• The largest event that day was led by the Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine, and we saw estimates for its crowd size ranging from “couple hundred” early in the action to to “5/600,” “more than a thousand,” “roughly 1,500,” “thousands,” “more than two thousand,” and “about 8,000” later in the day. This coalition has held weekly Saturday actions in Chicago since October 2023 that have ranged in size from scores or hundreds to tens of thousands. No arrests were reported at this one, although police reportedly did detain and then release a few people around a CTA station on the march route. As was the case with the Monday march, the largest crowd-size estimate came from organizers and was an outlier relative to what all other sources reported.
• A small group of activists read names of Palestinians killed in Gaza to DNC attendees entering the United Center throughout the day.
• In the afternoon, delegates affiliated with the Uncommitted National Movement—which organized during this year’s presidential primaries to pressure Democrats to seek a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and impose an arms embargo on Israel—started a sit-in outside the United Center entrance after convention organizers refused to give a speaking slot on the convention floor to a Palestinian-American. One independent journalist reported a crowd of “roughly 100.”
• The Chicago Jewish Alliance led a rally at Park #578 against antisemitism and religious persecution and in solidarity with Israel that reportedly drew “several dozen” or “roughly 50” people.
• Also at Park #578, groups seeking to draw attention to the opioid crisis and honor loved ones lost to drug overdoses held a small event with mock tombstones.
• Protesters organized a late-night/early-Thursday-morning noise demonstration near the hotel where Vice President Harris was reportedly staying that looked from the videos we saw like it involved 50-70 people (one of whom seemed to be playing a recorder poorly on purpose).
• We saw no after-action reports from the third of the daily pro-ceasefire runs but assume that it happened as planned.

Thursday, the convention’s final day, brought another 10 events, per our sources.

• The largest on this day was the concluding action led by March on the DNC 2024. One source estimated 1,500 marchers, while most of the others we saw just said “thousands.” As with Monday’s march, the outliers came again from the organizers, who estimated 8,000, and Fight Back! News, which reported “more than 11,000.” Some participants stuck around afterwards, sat on the street, blocked passing cars, and scuffled with police attempting to push them out of the roadway, but we’ve seen reports of just one arrest so far.
• The uncommitted delegates concluded their roughly 24-hour sit-in in front of the United Center with a press conference in the evening.
• Demonstrators again held banners and read the names of Palestinians killed in Gaza to people waiting to enter the United Center.
• In the same area, members of a group called Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust held posters with anti-abortion messages and graphic images of fetal remains.
• As is often the case, a group of evangelical Christian street preachers shared their message with the captive audience waiting in the security line for the convention.
• In the afternoon, activists held a pop-up protest outside a Harris campaign fundraiser at the Chicago Cultural Center that involved “about 75” people.
• Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising led a rally and press conference at Park #578 that looked to involve a couple dozen people.
• A nighttime protest outside a DNC after-party at the Ramova Theater for which we saw crowd estimates of “40-50” early in the action and “bout 150-200” a bit later on. Police forcibly arrested one protester.
• Also at night, activists projected a message calling for defunding policing and militarism and investing in social services onto the facade of the Chicago Stock Exchange.

Protest Themes

With some obvious exceptions (e.g., Hostage Square, the anti-abortion actions, the street preachers), nearly all of those 40+ events centered on opposition to genocide in Gaza and U.S. complicity in it. As you can see if you poke through the word cloud below, however, many of the actions that focused on Gaza also raised claims around a variety of other causes, including but not limited to anti-racism, anti-imperialism, anti-fascism, anti-capitalism, feminism, LGBTQ+ liberation, anarchism, police brutality, reproductive rights, immigrants’ rights, workers’ rights, climate action, housing, health care, and returning land to Indigenous peoples. The coalition of more than 200 organizations that comprised the March on the DNC 2024 Coalition included groups that typically focus on one or a few of these issue areas, but for this convention they saw common cause in Gaza and Palestians’ plight, and they drew linkages in their speeches and signs between that cause and their regular issue areas through conceptual nodes like state violence, colonialism, poverty, and white supremacy.

Accordingly, the tenor of the messages evident in chants and signs and banners from those big actions also varied widely. In a single march, we saw everything from “We’re trying to help you Kamala” to “Voting is not enough / we survive by taking direct action to care for each other” and “It is right to rebel! DNC go to hell!” We also saw a host of different flags in the crowds at the large marches, from ubiquitous Palestinian flags to national flags for Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ireland, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Peru, and Puerto Rico; a variety of Communist flags; Progress Pride and Trans Pride flags; an FTP flag; Wiphala and Land Back flags; a Hamas flag; Anarchist flags; an Anarcho-Brat flag (later burned); and a massive black flag wielded by a protester who was apparently arrested after the march on Thursday night for waving it in an intersection and refusing police instructions to clear the road.

Protest Policing

From a protest policing perspective, two notable features of the week were the astonishing scale and scope of the police presence at all the larger events, and the contrast in the aggression of police responses across events.

The security mobilization around the convention was massive. Independent journalists and the pictures and videos they shared showed giant phalanxes of police surrounding every major action, including hundreds with bicycles (which can be used as impromptu crowd-control barriers) or helmets and batons and sometimes full riot gear and less-lethal munitions. Agencies from all levels of government and numerous localities were often present, and Chicago PD Superintendent Larry Snelling personally attended all of the week’s big pre-planned protest actions, including the one on Sunday afternoon. If the intention was to “dominate the space” and intimidate would-be disruptors, they probably succeeded.

We also saw a significant contrast this past week in how the police handled actions that were led by coalitions with whom they had an established relationship and ones that were not. At both Monday and Wednesday’s coalition-led marches, police seemed mostly to take a hands-off approach. The exception was their aggressive response to the group that broke through the security fencing, but police only intervened in this case after coalition marshals had tried and failed to prevent that transgression from happening. On Wednesday’s coalition-led march, when police did move to detain a few marchers, marshals and the wider crowd were able to persuade them to release the would-be detainees.

Meanwhile, at Tuesday’s protest outside the Israeli consulate, which was organized by groups already under close scrutiny before the DNC, police responded to a small group of marchers’ attempt to push through one of their lines with an apparent kettling and mass arrests of the larger crowd. What struck me when watching video from the scene was how quickly and furiously police responded to this push, in contrast to the calmer and more patient approach they generally took at the larger marches. Numerous journalists at the scene reported conflicting police instructions and aggressive use of batons.

The Convention Protest Conundrum

A journalist emailed me the morning after the convention wrapped to ask if I thought the week’s protests had been effective. As I told him then, I would leave it to the organizers to answer that question for themselves.

I will say, though, that nominating conventions and similar big events now present a real conundrum for activists. On the one hand, they are major news events, with millions or even billions of eyes watching, so they present an uncommon opportunity to bring visibility to your cause. On the other hand, because of long-term trends in protest policing and intra-party governance, the nominating conventions have become extremely difficult to disrupt.

In security lingo, both the convention sites and the party platforms are now hard targets. The conventions themselves are basically multi-day, pre-planned infomercials, and governments and police hosting them are encouraged and empowered to assemble what amount to large standing armies to prevent their disruption. As we’ve seen at previous conventions, it’s tough to do much more under those circumstances than draw a bit more attention to your cause and, as we saw this week, disrupt in small ways at the fringes that don’t really knock the larger event off its planned course.

The Wider Context

Meanwhile, as our interactive dashboard shows, U.S. protest activity in support of Palestinian liberation and against mass death in Gaza continues apace.

In just the three days leading into the convention, CCC logged nearly 200 actions focused on this cause across nearly 150 different cities and towns, with thousands of total participants in them. Many of those events came on Sunday, a day of action called by the Not Another Bomb campaign, which calls for an immediate arms embargo on Israel. Many others were regular Palestine-focused weekly actions, of which there are now scores across the country.

Finally, as the summer winds down, we’re also seeing signs of a fresh burst of pro-Palestinian activism at U.S. colleges and universities. Over the week of the DNC, students on several campuses held rallies, marches, and other protests on this theme, and we’ve already seen flyers or other announcements for quite a few more. Many schools have updated codes of conduct over the summer with an eye toward preventing another protest wave like the one we saw in April and May, but organizers have also signaled their determination to work through or around those constraints, and the long and colorful history of student activism suggests that many of them will.

NOTE: We initially published this piece on Friday, August 23, but we continue to edit and update it as we receive new or better information about relevant events.