On Saturday, May 30th, 2020, the downtown area of Chicago had planned on a peaceful protest starting at 2pm at the Daley Center. I was near the Daley center when it started, and I saw thousands upon thousands of people marching in solidarity, holding signs, honking car horns, all advocating for human rights, justice, and for their voice to be heard. It was pretty incredible to see, in the midst of a global pandemic, that many people coming together for one cause. Yes, everyone was wearing masks.
As I headed home, I began to see the mass crowd head towards Trump Tower, effectively taking over and shutting down Upper Wacker in the process. The crowd began getting a bit nastier at Trump Tower, where I began to overhear confrontations between the police and the citizens. I saw firecrackers being set off, likely to scare the crowd and get it to dissipate. As I headed north to my apartment, the streets were completely empty, other than people heading south presumably to join the cause.
Later that night, it got bad. Really bad. The city will recover, and the city will move on. But I, for one, will never forget what I saw. My own neighborhood, completely trashed. Mobs of citizens breaking into stores that I go to or pass every day, shattering windows and taking the store’s complete inventory. I saw (videos of) citizens completely flipping cop cars, setting fire to the contents of dumpsters, and even taking a police horse and riding it aimlessly.
The city of Chicago had a full on riot, and walking around the morning after was very eye opening. All the store windows on the mag mile were boarded up or in the process of being boarded up. Store after store had shattered glass and looked to be empty on the inside. Random spots (storefronts, electrical boxes, the street, cars, etc) had expletives written on it, saying something along the lines of: “George Floyd,” “F**k 12,” or “420.” I even saw one store that just had an excess of bullet holes in its windows. It was honestly just heartbreaking to see a city, and neighborhood, that I love so much get completely destroyed.
People will look back on the year 2020 and remember it for a lot of reasons, but I really hope that the aftermath of the riots leads for reform in the system and doesn’t just “go to waste.” This is obviously a very touchy subject where opinions can largely differ, but I think everyone can agree that the system is currently very flawed, and it is being exposed now more than ever (in my lifetime).
Matt Morrow 