Protest On Juneteenth In Hazel Crest Aimed At Mass Incarceration

HAZEL CREST, IL — The Black Lives Matter South Chicagoland chapter will protest on Juneteenth, June 19, in Hazel Crest with an aim on mass incarceration and the "dismantling of the prison industrial complex." Activists are expected to gather around 5:30 p.m. near Oak Hill Park on 171st Street to begin the protest. Organizers have not said whether there will be a march or rally in a news release on the planned gathering.

The protest was called by the group in connection with Juneteenth, the holiday that marks the memory of June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers landed in Galveston, Texas to announce the Civil War had ended and those enslaved in Texas were now free.

"Although the Emancipation Proclamation is remembered as the end of chattel slavery in the U.S., the official end didn’t come until almost two and a half years later and the struggle for true Black liberation is one that continues to this day," the group's news release states.

The Black Lives Matter group's main priority, the news release states, "is the destabilizing and dismantling of the prison industrial complex and to work against mass incarceration, which subsides into symptoms of police brutality, racial profiling and high recidivism rates.

"With this, they further call for not only the defunding of police entities, but the eventual abolition of them."

Hazel Crest was chosen as the protest site because it "is one of the majority black areas in the suburbs, which is important when celebrating Juneteenth, and provides a means of centrality between the communities as to bring together a diverse set of people."

SOUL, PSL, Black Lives Matter Women of Faith and Protect the Frontlines are other groups involved in the Juneteenth protest.