Rally and march leaders head out of Union Park. (Photo by Kevin Beese/Chronicle Media)

More than 20,000 people marched through Chicago streets on Saturday, sending a message to end police brutality.

“How far have we really come if a black man was lynched two week ago?” Melinda Hernandez, a senior at Stanford University, asked during the Chicago March of Justice, which started at Union Park on the city’s Near West Side.

“How much longer must we wait for justice?” asked Hernandez, who was born and raised in the city’s Humboldt Park neighborhood. “A solution that does not address racist police is not a solution at all.”

She said that people are more concerned about corporations being destroyed through looting than black people being murdered.

“All lives cannot matter until black lives matter,” Hernandez said.

Protesters kneel Saturday on Ashland Avenue in memory of George Floyd, a black man killed at the hands of Minneapolis police. (Photo by Kevin Beese/Chronicle Media)

Kay Buzz, one of the Activate Chi organizers of the rally and march, said that the group has made an impact in just days of existence.

“We’ve increased our traction,” the 25-year-old Buzz said. “We are going to be around for a long time. We will continue to take up the fight for black lives. We will keep fighting for all human rights. We will keep protesting.”

Activate Chi said that Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s proposals for police reforms should be enacted sooner than three months from now.

“The mayor said she needs 90 days to put a plan in place. We planned this protest in four days,” one organizer said.

Activate Chicago leaders said the organization has seven demands:

• 

  Antonio Seda gives a protester a bottle of water. (Photo by Kevin Beese/Chronicle Media)

  Criminal prosecution of all officers involved in the murders of George Floyd (a black man killed in Minneapolis), Breonna Taylor (a black woman killed in Louisville) and Tony McDade (a transgender black man killed in Tallahassee, Florida)

• Filing and criminal prosecution of all Chicago Police Department officers who exercise excessive force against protesters
• Release and pardon of all arrested protesters in the custody of Chicago police
• Resumption of Chicago Transit Authority services during protests and the removal of the city-wide curfew “meant to silence peaceful protests”
• Defunding of CPD
• Full access to the Fraternal Order of Police contract renegotiation “which currently allows cops to murder black people with no fear of repercussions”
• Creation of a Civilian Police Accountability Council

Ryan Watson of the Chicago Socialist Alternative said racism needs to be addressed from the top down.

“Racism is not a question of attitude, it is a question of power,” Watson said.

Melina Hernandez, who was born and raised in Humboldt Park, tells protesters that a solution to police brutality that does not address racist police “is not a solution at all.” (Photo by Kevin Beese/Chronicle Media)

He cited the case of Breonna Taylor, who was killed March 13 when Louisville police officers, executing a no-knock search warrant, used a battering ram to crash into her apartment. The emergency room technician was shot eight times after a confrontation with police.

Friday (June 5) was her birthday.

“We should be celebrating her 27^th birthday,” Watson said. “’Instead we were holding her funeral.”

He said the government made a big deal out of providing $1,200 that was supposed to tie people over for 10 weeks when it doled out billions of dollars to corporations.

“We need fighters in the struggle,” Watson said. “We do not need pacifist allies.”