Crain's Chicago Business reports:
For the second year in a row, protesters are planning to block shoppers from entering stores along North Michigan Avenue on the day after Thanksgiving, the busiest shopping day of the year.Blue America demonstrates against itself in Blue America!
The effort, planned by a diffuse network that includes Black Lives Matter, the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and area churches, seeks to draw attention to a wide range of issues, including police shootings, racism and economic inequalities that keep Chicago's South and West sides mired in poverty and violence.
The organizers say they hope this year's turnout will be larger than last year's, when hundreds of people temporarily obstructed access to retailers along Chicago's most famous shopping strip and cost some stores a reported 50 percent of their sales on Black Friday.
"We're expecting a bigger turnout this year, though this is not an exact science," one of the self-identified organizers, Frank Chapman, a field organizer with the Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, told Crain's. "The reason we're looking for a bigger turnout is that Trump is the president-elect and, boy, are people pissed."
