Dan Ryan Shutdown: A Look Back, 2 Years Later

CHICAGO — Protests in Chicago have been part of the norm for decades. It's the city that brought the ultimate civil unrest in the form of the Haymarket Affair of 1886, the site of the Democratic National Convention riots in 1968 and where today protests continue demanding the end of police brutality and speeding up reform.

A common theme coming from those who oppose the police brutality protests is a question of why no one protests gun violence coming from the intercity neighborhoods. But those protests do, in fact, occur regularly.

The often outspoken Father Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Catholic Church in the city's Auburn Gresham neighborhood has been at the center of many of those protests over the years, traditionally leading a walk through the neighborhood in memory of fatal shooting victims every Friday night in the summer.

But no Pfleger-led march garnered as much attention at the one that completely shut down the northbound lanes of the Dan Ryan Expressway on July 7, 2018, now two years ago.

Protestors planned to march on the expressway from 79th Street to 68th Street, taking up the entire northbound lanes. But they were met with resistance a few blocks into the march by law enforcement officials from both the Illinois State Police and the Chicago Police Department.

A blockade of dump trucks and ambulances kept two lanes open to traffic while allowing the right lane for protestors. But the marchers, led by Pfleger, Jesse Jackson and Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza among others, demanded the entire roadway.

Negotiations between Pfleger's group and police lasted for about an hour, before the priest used his mega horn to make this announcement:

"The Dan Ryan is going to be shut down."

Watch below as Patch captured the moment from atop the 76th Street overpass. The final six minutes of the video show the moment the marchers took over the expressway.