There was a big turnout Saturday in Forest Park for the No Kings protest against President Donald Trump’s increasingly authoritarian regime. Somewhere between 200 and 400 people (estimates varied) lined the south side of Roosevelt Road near the mall. Signs, costumes, young families and elders – all together in what one participant told the Review felt like a “super-spirited” and positive statement of opposition to the current administration.
It was, of course, just one of some 2,600 such protests across the country on Saturday. A ballpark estimate of 7 million Americans turning out is a number that gets your attention.
As we interviewed participants after the protest, we asked how people had found out about the event and who organized it. Everyone seemed fuzzy, and so we reached out to the village to ask who might have pulled a permit. Turns out no permit was required, according to Chief Ken Gross and Village Administrator Rachell Entler. But they offered up the name of the organizer who they said had reached out to the village some time ago to learn about parameters.
That’s when we called Walter Mitchell Jr., leader of a group called the People’s Post Alliance. It is organized out of the Chicago Bulk Mail Center on Roosevelt in Forest Park, where Mitchell is an employee unhappy with the postal service’s use of an outside contractor at the facility. He has led small, weekly protests on Roosevelt since last spring.
A resident of Crete, Mitchell decided to supersize his protest by aligning with the Indivisible activist network to create a Forest Park No Kings protest. He was amazed by the turnout, by the enthusiasm of the protesters and the response of passing cars and trucks who honked with passion in support of the cause.
Now Mitchell says he loves Forest Park and may just move here for its energy and its diversity.
Forest Park can always use one more community organizer.