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ALBANY PARK — A student from Theodore Roosevelt High School is helping to organize a march through Albany Park on Thursday to show solidarity with Chicago’s Black community after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The 4 p.m. march will begin at Horner Park and move west to the police department’s Albany Park (17th) District at 4650 N. Pulaski Road.
Demonstrators have staged days of protests throughout the city in response to a police officer killing Floyd in Minneapolis and to support racial justice efforts across the country.
“The message is Black and Brown unity and that Black Lives Matter,” said Brenda Leyva, 17, one of the march’s organizers.
Earlier this month, tensions ran high between some in Chicago’s Black and Latinx communities. Leaders and organizers partnered to bridge relationships in neighborhoods across the Southwest Side.
Thursday’s march is an extension of that solidarity, Leyva said. The group will have 10 minutes of silence before chanting “Black Lives Matter” as they march towards the police district.
Albany Park’s population is 47.9 percent Latino and 43.2 percent of people in the neighborhood speak Spanish at home, according to 2019 census data.
“I want more people in Albany Park to know what’s happening,” Leyva said.
Demonstrators will follow social distancing guidelines to help slow the spread of the coronavirus, Leyva said.
Find out more about the march here.
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