Students at the School of the Art Institute (SAIC) set up a pro-Palestine encampment Saturday morning, May 4, at the Art Institute of Chicago. The Art Institute is a major institution and tourist attraction located on busy Michigan Ave. and SAIC is adjacent to it. There were about 20 tents and 40 students in the encampment originally. The demand of the encampment was expressed in a chant heard throughout the day: “Disclose, divest! We will not stop, we will not rest!” 

The North Garden of the Art Institute where the encampment was located was renamed by protesters as “Hind Garden” after Hind Rajab, the six-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza who, along with her family, was slaughtered by Israeli gunfire in January of this year. Hind was left to die alone as the Israeli military bombed an emergency vehicle and killed the crew on the way to rescue her. These students also took inspiration from the students at Columbia University who took over Hamilton Hall and renamed it Hind Hall.

Over the next hours, about 200 protesters mobilized to support and defend the SAIC encampment. Following the revolutionary internationalist May Day rally organized by the Revcom Corps for the Emancipation of Humanity, Chicago, which took place up the street, a march of 25 people from that rally arrived to join the SAIC students’ protest. 

The Chicago Police Dept. moved quickly after the encampment was set up. When the cops began to move in, they were met and blocked by a determined line of protesters who refused to back down as the cops used a metal barricade to repeatedly try to push back and break through the protesters to reach the encampment. “Hold the line for Palestine! Hold the line for Palestine!” encampment defenders chanted. 

The cops retreated after a lengthy back and forth, while many more cops were arriving on the scene. There was an hour-long impasse. All this played out on busy Michigan Ave., with protesters both on the sidewalk in front and having taken over the meridian in the center of the street.

Then came Art Institute, SAIC and police negotiators to try to break the solidarity blockade to allow the cops to enter and shut down the encampment. Protesters were “offered” an alternate site down the street. Additionally, organizers said the CPD threatened felonies against people in the solidarity blockade if they didn’t leave. But leave we refused to do. People locked arms again in front of the gate separating Michigan Ave. from the Art Institute garden where the encampment members prepared for possible arrest. 

As the CPD was amassing forces to break through the blockade and gate, protest organizers challenged more people to join the encampment. The police eventually succeeded in getting into the encampment. They tore down the tents and arrested 69 people inside who locked arms together in the face of the police attack. Some protesters were violently thrown to the ground, as all in the encampment were taken away to the police transport bus. Protesters outside angrily chanted, “40,000 dead! And you arrest students!” 

There were loud and angry chants throughout the protest: “Free, Free Palestine!” As the cops repeatedly moved against the protest, we chanted “CPD, KKK, IOF,^* they’re all the same!” 

The Revcom Corps was proud to unite with this defiant protest, bringing the message: “We need and we demand revolution for a whole new way to live, a fundamentally different system!”

At the jail where encampment protesters were detained, 60 people came and joined in jail solidarity during Saturday night into Sunday morning as arrested protesters were released and trickled out.