Nearly eight years to the day of the start of the war in Iraq, protestors marched north on Michigan Avenue and held a rally near Water Tower Place.
Hundreds of people gathered. Their message: the war is not only unjust but expensive.
"We need money for jobs, not the war. We need money for schools, not the war. We need money for health care, not the war," were among the chants heard by the plethora of sign-carrying marchers.
From a press release announcing the march:
The protest was organized by a group called the March 19 Coalition. The group said that more than 70 local peace, faith-based, student and community organizations have endorsed Saturday's protest.
The march was also part celebration. A federal judge this week that Chicago police wrongly arrested hundreds of protesters during a march protesting the war's outbreak in 2003.
"Those arrests and city officials' subsequent chronic obstruction of the right to assemble and march against the war sparked years of struggle for civil liberties by peace activists," read a statement from the Chicago Coalition Against War and Racism. "Today, activists feel vindicated -- and have vowed to take that spirit to the streets."
In his ruling, Federal Judge Richard Posner said police acted "without justification" when they arrested about 900 people at a downtown protest on March 20, 2003.
