FACING UNREST, OAK PARK DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY
JOURNAL Page 10
June 3, 2020 Vol. 40, No. 45 ONE DOLLAR @oakpark @wednesdayjournal
The looting of our minds
F
or me, it started on Sunday afternoon. I was driving east on Madison into the city to get a sense of the mood, expecting to see what I had gotten used to seeing in the five years of protests and parades and Lollapaloozas that have gripped the Loop, but have no stronghold on the West Side, where chaos and euphoria — rather than coming in fits and starts — constitutes simply living. Here, the stores are already boarded up, shards of glass are always and forever being swept away. Here, the pain of loss or of some injustice is always lamented. There are always protests (and, yes, against crime perpetrated by people other than the police). Here, life goes on after a million minor tragedies. And that’s how the trip started and continued a block after crossing Austin Boulevard (I remember being relieved, as I always am, by the sight of the 15th District police headquarters). But as I drove east past Laramie and Lavergne and Cicero, I gradually became even more tense than I typically am on the West Side. The traffic slowed for bodies walking frenetically into the street. Vehicles uturned in front and beside mine. Those cars that always wrack my nerves: the threatening-looking ones with tinted windows and overlarge rims blaring overloud, bass-heavy rap swerved in and out of gaps between other cars at a standstill. I drove a few more blocks east and no-
MICHAEL ROMAIN
See ROMAIN on page 14
OPRF grads lead protest at village hall By JAMES KAY Staff Writer
With protests and looting happening across the globe in response to a police officer murdering Minnesota resident George
Floyd, a group of Oak Park and River Forest High School seniors banded together to lead a peaceful protest at Oak Park’s village hall on May 31. During the 40-minute event, organizers of the protest shared heartfelt messages to
a crowd of around 200 attendees to express their outrage over law enforcement abusing their power at the expense of black and brown people. Members of the community held up signs that read “Black Power,” See STUDENTS on page 14
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