But some of those protests took the form of violence, by way of property destroyed and stores and businesses looted.
Jackie and Janel Jackson are the mother and daughter owners of Kilwins Chocolate, Fudge and Ice Cream, a chain of black owned shops across the city including a location on South Michigan Avenue, right in the middle of what would become a hot spot for looters.
“We came in and it was glass shattered everywhere,” Jackie Jackson said. “(There was a) fixture that they took from CVS and it’s very heavy. They used this to bust the window open.”
“Looking outside, all you see is cars driving up, people packing their bags, luggages, suitcases of items and putting it in their cars and going,” Janel Jackson said of the looting.
“That particular day, we were in here all day preparing to make all these beautiful products because everything is made fresh. And just to see all of that hard work go to waste,” Janel Jackson said. “To see what was happening in the city of Chicago and to our stores, it was a moment where I was cringing because it was like how could anybody be so careless or not be considerate of other people’s hard work?”
And while they worked together for a month to get the shop back up and running, the two see things a little differently when it comes to the influence of that fragment of the protests.
“The looting absolutely was not necessary,” Jackie Jackson. “Burning up the buildings, destroying hard worked business. But protesting and marching, all of that was necessary. I loved everything about that.”