This story was written by one of Teen Vogue's 2024 Student Correspondents, a team of college students covering the election cycle from key battleground states.
Over 120 organizations and 3,000 protesters marched through the streets of Milwaukee in the sweltering heat outside of last week’s Republican National Convention. Organizers with the Coalition to March on the RNC say they were there to protest the Republican Party’s “racist and reactionary agenda.”
The national coalition of grassroots groups and unions convened in Milwaukee during one of the most tumultuous weeks in recent American political history. After surviving an attempted assassination attempt, Donald Trump took the stage at Fiserv Forum to accept the GOP nomination. Then the race shifted shape again, with President Joe Biden announcing he will not be running for reelection and is instead endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris.
But amid this turmoil, the protesters say they’re focused on speaking up for abortion access, Palestine, LGBTQ+ rights, and more — no matter who wins in November.
“If we fight, we win,” Omar Flores, co-Chair of the Coalition to March on the RNC told Teen Vogue during the march. “No matter who gets into office, we have to take direct action.”
Kobi Guillory, an organizer with Freedom Road Socialist Organization, co-Chair of Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, and a middle school science teacher in Chicago, spoke out against what he feels are Republican “attacks” on Black and brown people, women, LGBTQ people, the working class, and immigrants. “Defeating the Republican agenda is a matter of life and death for working and oppressed people,” he said.
Students march in solidarity with Palestine
In the months leading up to the March on the RNC, students on college campuses across the country have been taking direct action to demand their schools divest from financial ties to companies supporting Israel’s military violence in Palestine. Many students have faced academic and legal consequences, with more than 3,000 arrested or detained and many facing suspension or expulsion.
Some of the same students that are coping with the fallout from their encampments (including arrests, and expulsions) showed up en masse to “stand in solidarity with Palestine” at the March on the RNC. Victoria Hinkley, an organizer from Tampa Bay Students for a Democratic Society, was expelled from the University of South Florida in Tampa less than a week before she was supposed to walk the stage in her graduation ceremony. Still unsure if her degree will be reinstated, she and around 10 other students from Florida flew out to protest.
“The only way out is through,” Hinkley told Teen Vogue of her decision to join the march. “The only way to win in a system like this, in our condition, is through direct action, getting out in the street and organizing.”
Emily Chu, a student organizer with the Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Minnesota, echoed Hinkley’s sentiments. “Do not let these people in power underestimate your power,” Chu told Teen Vogue. “The power is with the people. We as students, we just led our encampment campaign, and we won major wins for divestment.”
Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, Israel continues to launch attacks on Palestine, killing over 38,000 Palestinians according to the Gaza Health Ministry (although there is still uncertainty with the numbers, the scientific paper The Lancet suggests that it is not “implausible” the death toll is above 186,000). The United States has provided billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, and the Biden administration has yet to call for a permanent ceasefire, leading protests from various organizations to unite over demanding justice in Palestine.
“The main thing we’re here for is … to fight for Palestine,” Jackson Robak, an organizer with the Detroit Anti-War Committee, told Teen Vogue. “In Detroit, we’re fighting for divestment, and we wanted to take that [to Milwaukee] , and show that no matter what, no matter if he becomes president, no matter where it goes, we’re going to fight Trump every single step of the way.”
Calls for a “united front”
Lo Cross, an organizer with Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression, came to the March on the RNC because of their work with families of victims of police crimes. “Time and time again, Black and brown and indigenous folks are used as a scapegoat for things that are wrong with this country,” Cross tells Teen Vogue. “It’s important that we show a united front … [against] the racist and reactionary agenda of the GOP to show them that it isn’t our fault, and that we will stand up and we will fight back.”
Many protestors say they feel disillusioned about the upcoming presidential race.
“The country right now is really divided,” Cross says. “What we can unite on is a progressive front, a united front that will push both parties to represent politics and policies that are representative of us, of young people, and the futures that we want.”
Young people are turning to one another to make change, instead of endorsing a specific candidate. “We’re in a pretty rotten system that only lets us choose from two people,” Joseph Charry, a 19-year-old organizer from Tampa Bay Students for a Democratic says. “More than calling on people to vote for one or the other, I want people to…take to the streets to demand that their rights be respected.”
Many of the entities involved in the Coalition to March on the RNC, like anti-war organization CODEPINK, also plan to head to Chicago in August to protest at the Democratic National Convention.
“I hope that the progressive movement in the U.S. could bind together and realize that our struggles are intertwined, and that we need each other more now than ever,” Danaka Katovich, National Co-Director of CODEPINK told Teen Vogue. “We’ll face a lot more repression as time goes on, whoever wins in November…We need to band together and realize that we can’t win without each other.”
“It’s an entire system that we are opposing here,” Guillory of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization says.
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