The event started with a really great routine from the Jessie White Tumblers--they fly high! And IL Secretary of State Jessie White himself was there, in a jump suit, starting the whole event off with a heartfelt message of peace and the power of youth and individual citizens to make a difference.

We had really great speakers from communities affected by genocide, including Holocaust, Armenian, Cambodian, Bosnia, & Southern Sudan with Luol Deng of the Chicago Bulls. His presence drew in a lot of media. Here's a radio story & see below for more links (http://podcast.wbbm780.com/wbbm/725950.mp3).

We had a very moving speaker from Darfur, Fatima Haroun, who has spoken at other rallies on the east coast. State elected officials were on hand, including the author of the IL divestment law, Senator Jacqueline Collins, and her colleague in the House, IL Rep. Greg Harris, who shared a portion of a message from Senator Durbin, who could not be with us because he was going to Sudan! Ben Prochazka from national Save Darfur HQ in DC came and offered his "Why China & What To Do" message.

We had an Olympic Torch Procession, with Luol Deng holding the torch at the start of the procession and the other speakers following, surrounded by children holding colorful flags, evoking the colorful garments of the women of Darfur. When the procession returned to the stage, Deng handed the torch off. As each of the speakers addressed the crowd, a refugee from Darfur or Southern Sudan stood with her/him and held the torch. Deng was the last speaker. He did not introduce himself as a basketball player but as a fellow refugee. He handed the torch to Mohamed Abdelrhman Kauda, the President of the IL Darfur Association, who accepted it and thanked the community for their support.

Our own Steve Dishler closed the ceremony with words from US politician Edward Everett: "I am only one, but I am one. I can't do everything, but I can do something. The something I ought to do, I can do. And by the grace of God, I will."

We had great music by recently signed artists Trevor Menear and his band. He did a cut for "Instant Karma" called "John Sinclair." (Check him out on myspace or itunes or youtube.) We handed out his CD sampler, got over 200 signatures on letters to Hu Jintao, got signatures on our banner that will be in DC for the final leg of the torch relay, Instant Karma posters, Human Rights Watch info sheets, Team Darfur sweatbands, official event t-shirts, etc., and collected lots of donations (an unintended result of the giveaways).

It was great to have the crowd lining up for ice cream, signing and collecting stuff all at once while the Trevor Menear band played a rockin' set. It felt festive and hopeful.


ADDITIONAL MEDIA COVERAGE
Here are some of the news reports that mentioned the Chicago event(though I could not find our own NBC-5 coverage). The use of the wire services really helped & the presence of Luol Deng made the story spread across the country.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/2007-10-22-notes_N.htm
http://www.wgnradio.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37327&Itemid=49
http://www.morrisdailyherald.com/articles/2007/10/22/state_news/751zdarfur.txt
http://www.wnct.com/midatlantic/nct/sports.apx.-content-articles-NCT-2007-10-21-0014.html
http://podcast.wbbm780.com/wbbm/725950.mp3
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/chi-22rowboldnamesoct22,1,5164877.story
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/sports/20071022_Deng_and_Darfur.html
http://www.juf.org/news/local.aspx?id=27562

Hey--check out our new website for pictures, blogs, events, etc.

www.savedarfurchicago.org

Hey everyone--October 2007 is seeing a lot of action on Darfur in the Chicagoland area.

Oct 7-14: Please check out the Darfur/Darfur Projections at various locations by going to www.darfurdarfur.org.

Oct. 15: Divest Chase! Deliver petitions to the Chase Tower

Oct. 16 & 17: John Prendergast speaks in Chicago

Oct. 21: "Dream for Darfur" Olympic Torch Relay & Rally

Oct. 24: United Nations Day: Join partner Amnesty International on their "door-to-door" campaign to raise awareness.

The Chicago-area community of supporters of Darfur will converge on the Federal Plaza on Sunday, April 29, 6:30 pm, for a Rally and Candlelight Vigil, which will include national and state legislators, religious leaders, and entertainment by the Soul Children of Chicago. The event will begin with a Press Conference. It is a family friendly event. The focus of the call will be support for Illinois and Congressional divestment bills, seeking to remove our dollars from the possibility of funding the genocide in Darfur. Please see the listing of events for the group and sign up.

Darfur and the Moral Minority

The crisis in Darfur was a rallying point for many this week. Illinois' Junior Senator, Barack Obama used his influence and the platform of the Oprah Winfrey Show, which is viewed by millions of people each day, to educate the public and highlight the plight of people living in the Darfur region of Sudan.

The United Methodist Church issued a response to the crisis calling for the immediate deployment of the 17,500 UN peacekeepers and over 3000 UN civilian police authorized by the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1706 passed on August 31, 2006 and urged the government of Sudan to comply with the Darfur Peace Agreement so that this most horrible human tragedy can come to an end and the suffering of the people stop.

Evangelical Christian leaders, including such notables as the Reverend Bill Hybel's of Willowcreek Church and President of the Willowcreek Association, Reverend Ted Haggard the President of the National Association of Evangelicals, Dr. Richard Land of the Southern Baptists, have created a new organization called "Evangelicals for Darfur". These evangelical leaders took out a full page advertisement in USA Today beseeching President Bush to act on his faith and do the right thing by leading the world to stop the genocide effecting "the least of these" in Darfur.

The evangelical leader's ad went on to inform the President, "To date more than 400,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced. Countless more have been raped, maimed, and tortured; Men, women, and children created in God's image, innocents all. Ending the atrocities will require your personal leadership in supporting the deployment of a strong U.N. peacekeeping force and multilateral economic sanctions. While we often disagree on matters of politics, we are united in the belief that your intervention can make the critical difference in Darfur. We join together now to urge you, in the words of Proverbs 24:11-12, to "rescue those being led away to death." We pledge to do everything we can can to rally support in both Congress and the U.N. to support your leadership in ending the horror in Darfur."

It is great to see the attention the issue is receiving. I have frequently been in touch with Senator Obama's staff regarding the crisis and he is, and has been, one of the leading voices on this issue, doing far more than most people know. The United Methodist Church has fought, and continues to fight to bring this genocide to an end and to respond to the humanitarian crisis. Evangelicals are a welcome voice in the struggle to defend those who have no voice.

Earlier this year, I attended the rally for Darfur held in Washington DC. The rally was perhaps the most diverse rally I have ever attended. It was amazing to see; young and old bridged the generation gap, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Buddhist set aside their historic differences for this common cause. Two groups that chose not to support the Save Darfur Coalition event, sponsored by over 160 organizations, were the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) which describes itself as working to reform the social and political witness of American churches, and the Wilberforce Forum.

Why did a renewal and reform movement that claims to labor on behalf of persecuted people choose not to participate in the Save Darfur Coalition event? Because they viewed one or two co-sponsoring groups as having ties to terrorist groups who desire to wipe Israel off the map. It is a strange and amazing rationale considering; Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace prize-winner, freely and passionately addressed the crowd of over 25,000, American Jewish Organizations were among the lead organizers of the event, and the Jewish community was so well represented with perhaps thousands of youth who traveled by bus and proudly displayed signs identifying themselves.

Members of the dissenting groups even dared ask, "Where is the morality of the Save Darfur coalition?"

These dissenters are reminiscent of those whom Jesus described as "blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel...scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which indeed appear beautiful outside, but inside they are full of dead men's bones" (Matthew 23:24ff.).

When I heard of their dissent and their self-righteous condemnation of the coalition, I wondered if they had heard of the government of Sudan's suggestion that the coalition was a Zionist conspiracy. When I heard of their dissent suggesting that the Council on American-Islamic Relations' (CAIR) participation was less than genuine and an attempt to clean up their reputation, I wondered if they had also heard the claim that Jewish organizations were participating in order to deflect attention from the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.

When I heard of their dissent I also pondered the words directed to the people of Darfur by the perpetrators of the violence, "Do not expect the United States of America and the West to come to your aid as they did for the people in the South (The southern region of Sudan). The people in the South are Christians. The world doesn't care about what happens to you! Does the fact that these Black Africans are Muslims make a difference? Can we disagree on politics yet still unite to save human life "men, women, and children created in God's image, innocents all."? Or, will this "genocide in slow motion" continue unabated?"
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To hear Obama's DC rally speech visit www.youtube.com or Link

To view the Evangelical leaders document or to listen to the radio ad visit www.evangelicalsfordarfur.org

JOURNEY FOR HUMANITY--Coast-to-Coast Walk to Protest Genocide

A group of dedicated and concerned citizens of Armenian descent left California in June to journey and walk across the United States and thus call attention to the ongoing genocide and the legacy of genocide in the last century. They plan to reach Washington, DC, in November. In early October, they were in Chicago and inspired us with their commitment and with their description of a paradigm shift based on a belief in our power as individuals to affect change.

Read more about their ideas and follow their journey, by visiting www.journeyforhumanity.com.


To Contact Journey for Humanity, please call Hasmig (818-730-8130) or Ed (201-988-8314).

The Chicago Coalition to Save Darfur held a visual demonstration of our support for the immediate deployment of the peacekeeping force to Darfur authorized by UN resolution 1706. The event involved a dotted line of people along north Michigan Avenue, united by the UN-blue color of their t-shirts, each one holding a message in support of the resolution. Over 150 people participated--THANKS EVERYONE!

To see pictures, please go to this blogspot and click on the link in the lower right area where some photo previews are posted.
Link Thanks to Janessa for those.

If anyone else has video/photo footage, please send along.
REMEMBER TO DO A CHECK VIA ZIP CODE for all the events listed in the Chicago area.