Julie Stuebner, 74, of Batavia calls herself a “late in life protestor.” She’s started going to all the protests she can in the area during President Donald Trump’s second term.
Among other issues, she’s concerned about possible cuts to programs like Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, she said on Sunday. Her husband died of cancer, she said, and she now volunteers at Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital in Geneva and at Fox Valley Food for Health.
“If I’m just a number with a couple of signs, I’m making my voice heard,” she said on Sunday on Ogden Avenue in Aurora, as cars honked in the background at the protestors gathered on the sidewalk.
Stuebner was one of over 18,000 gathered over a 30-mile stretch across DuPage and Cook counties from Aurora to Chicago on Sunday to protest Trump administration policies, per a news release from the Hands Across Chicagoland event organized by the Democratic Party of DuPage County, Indivisible Illinois, the Illinois Federation of Teachers and other political organizations across the Chicago area.
The idea was to “form a human chain of solidarity against Trump’s illegal and authoritarian actions and the GOP’s failure to defend the Constitution,” per the release.
Protestors signed up in advance based on their ZIP code, and lined the sidewalk along Ogden Avenue and 26th Street, from Aurora to the Little Village neighborhood in Chicago, on Sunday afternoon.
The idea arose out of past protests organized by the DuPage Democratic party, according to the group’s chair Reid McCollum. In March, the group hosted a “Tesla Takedown DuPage” protest against Elon Musk’s efforts to slash and restructure the federal government and decided they wanted to stage a protest that stretched further.
Sunday’s demonstration was spurred on by the Trump administration sending individuals — like Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly deported from the United States — to detention centers, McCollum said.
The protest’s goal is to reach a significant number of people passing by the protest so that the people of the U.S. won’t “just slide into authoritarianism without fighting back,” McCollum said.
Amongst a few dozen protestors gathered in Lisle, several local officials offered their remarks. Standing in front of an inflatable chicken meant to be a caricature of President Trump, U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Matteson, told The Beacon-News that these kinds of demonstrations show that people are “ready to resist” the Trump administration. She described concerns about Medicaid, SNAP and tariffs as some of the everyday issues that are affecting ordinary residents’ lives.
“We just have to be resilient, and we have to be consistent,” Kelly told the crowd of protestors gathered in Lisle.
U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, also spoke in Lisle on Sunday, calling the current political situation “hell on wheels,” describing a need to push back on the Trump administration through the courts and in the coming elections.
He said he thinks there’s concern among his Republican colleagues about the pushback to the current administration.
“The Republicans are not comfortable with what they’re seeing on the streets of the United States,” Foster said. “Don’t let yourself think they’re not listening.”
Other local elected officials gathered in Lisle on Sunday included Illinois state Sens. Laura Ellman and Karina Villa.
State Rep. Barbara Hernandez, a Democrat who represents portions of Aurora, North Aurora and Batavia, said she is focused on hearing from local residents, to bring their stories and concerns back to Springfield, and encouraging her constituents to become more educated on political processes.
And she said demonstrations like these are an important reminder for elected officials.
“I tell them (her constituents) to keep getting involved, to keep communication with us,” Hernandez said on Sunday. “Keep us accountable for what we do or don’t do, and if you don’t understand something, ask us.”
Across the street from the protestors in Lisle, Dan Davies, 55, the owner of general contracting company Earthwerks, decided to stage a counter-demonstration at his business in Lisle when he heard about the Hands Across Chicagoland protest to provide a place for people on the other end of the political spectrum to share their perspectives.
“I just like to promote patriotism, and the American way,” Davies said. “I lived the American Dream.”
Over in Aurora, at the western edge of the demonstration, Luanne Lo Monte, 66, of Aurora said Trump’s second term has been “a lot scarier” and that’s caused her to get involved in activism.
“He showed us the playbook, so no one should have been surprised,” Lo Monte said on Sunday. “It amazes me when people drive up and are like, ‘What are you protesting?’ … It’s scarier to me than somebody (who) at least knows they like Trump … the ignorance is what’s the scariest to me.”
Lo Monte said she’s worried about retiring in the near future because she’s concerned about threats to Medicare, as well as threats to LGBTQ individuals.
“We are so diverse,” Lo Monte said of her neighborhood in Aurora, where she and her wife live. “It’s wonderful so, at least that closeness, we’re not afraid, but you never know what’s going to happen when you walk out.”
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com
