Past Activities

South Siders For Peace was founded by members of Beverly Unitarian Church on New Year's Day, 2003, as a nondenominational peace activist organization for residents of Chicago's Southwest Side and adjoining suburbs.
 
All are welcome to attend the weekly meeting (7:30 p.m. on Tuesdays at the Beverly Unitarian Church, second floor). Typical activities at these meetings include:

• planning and organizing specific actions such as peace vigils, monthly Community Forums, group participation in rallies and marches, etc.

• discussing issues, developing "talking points" and debating strategy

• sharing information gleaned from the news media and the Internet

• distributing anti-war materials such as literature, buttons, bumper stickers, window and yard signs
 
Past activities and accomplishments include:

• hosting a public forum on "Immigration and the War" with guest speakers Julieta Bolivar, an immigrants' rights and counter recruitment activist; Pepe Lozano, a community and youth activist; and Delia Saucedo, a labor activist and immigrants' rights advocate (7/9/06)

• taking part in the Evergreen Park Independence Day Parade (6/30/06)

• leading a feeder march & protest rally at 95th and Western that joined up with city-wide protest downtown on the 3rd anniversary of the war (3/18/06)

• hosting a public forum on "Weapons Left Behind: Depleted Uranium and Other Effects of War" with guest speakers Dr. Joseph Miller of Notre Dame University's Dept. of Psychology and peace activist Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness (2/19/06)

• hosting a second public forum on military recruitment in schools with guest speaker Fernando Suarez Del Solar, father of one of the first Marines to die in Iraq, and presenting the documentary film Military Voices Against Endless War (11/13/05)

• staging a Day of the Dead Vigil and Protest at the corner of 95th & Western, commemorating the over 2,000 American soldiers and over 100,000 Iraqi citizens killed thus far during the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq (11/1/05)

• hosting a public forum to discuss the problem of military recruiting in schools, along with a screening of the video Military Myths, a documentary about discrimination and dehumanization in the military (6/12/05)

• organizing a feeder march to the Rock Island Metra Station at 103rd St. in Beverly, where marchers boarded a train downtown to join the Youth and Militarization protest march to the Leo Burnett building on the second anniversary of the Iraq invasion (3/19/05)

• a public screening of the video What Really Happened In Ohio on November 2nd? at the World Folk Music Company, in cooperation with Friends of the Green Planet, The Citizens for Truth Coalition, and Progressive Democrats of Illinois (12/10/04)

• co-sponsoring Peace Pledge-Chicago's "Candlelight Rally to Stop the War & End the Occupations" held in Federal Plaza following the 2004 presidential election (11/3/04)

• hosting a panel discussion entitled "The Casualties of War: Are Military Veterans Treated or Mistreated? Do We Really Support Our Troops?" with Ray Parrish, GI counselor with Viet Nam Veterans Against the War; clinical psychologist Janet Kamer, National Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder & Gulf War Illness Chair for Viet Now; and Rich Morbidoni, Superintendent of the Cook County Veterans Assistance Commission (10/22/04)

• a public screening of the documentary OutFoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism at the World Folk Music Company in Beverly (10/3/04)

• hosting a panel discussion entitled "Iraq: How Can the U.S. Get Out?" with Evan Freund of Citizens for Global Solutions, Steve Nelson of Veterans for Peace, and labor/anti-war activist Jim Miles (6/27/04)

• a public screening of the controversial documentary Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War at the Woodson Regional Library Auditorium (5/12/04)

• hosting a community forum entitled "Is the World Safer Without Sadam?" with McGuire Gibson, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute (2/29/04)

• hosting a panel discussion entitled "Roadblock to World Peace: Confronting the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict"with Suzanne Adely, Community Organizer for the Arab American Action Network, and Andrea Shapiro, Spokesperson for Not In My Name (11/9/03)

• hosting a public address and Q-and-A forum with U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama (7/27/03)

• hosting a community forum entitled "Iraq: Liberation-or Occupation and Plunder?" with Paul d'Amato, Associate Editor of the International Socialist Review, along with a public screening of Hidden Wars of Desert Storm, a documentary narrated by Gulf War I veterans (6/8/03)

• hosting a community forum entitled "The USA Patriot Act: Protection or Peril?" with the ACLU's Dwayne Nash and Emile Schepers of the Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights (5/18/03)

• hosting a community forum entitled "Why Iraq?" with guest speakers Andy Thayer of CCAWR and Theresa Kubasak & Gabe Huck from Voices in the Wilderness (4/13/03)

• co-sponsoring Chicago's first city-wide Peace and Justice Teach-In, in association with the AFSC and other neighborhood activist organizations (5/31/03)

• hosting a civil disobedience training class conducted by John Bartlett of Peace Pledge Chicago (3/8/03)

• handing out free anti-war buttons and promotional literature at the South Side Irish St. Patrick's Day Parade (3/16/03)

• carpooling and participating as a group in major demonstrations, such as the Devon Avenue march on 2/15/03 and the Federal Plaza rally on (4/5/03)

• hosting pre-invasion candlelight vigils at Beverly Unitarian Church

• distributing flyers at Rock Island Metra stations and the 95th St. CTA station to promote a major downtown demonstration (3/5/03)

• packaging and mailing "rice packets with a message" to the White House, as well as promoting other group letter-writing efforts to U.S. and world leaders

• producing and distributing a CD collection of anti-war music by current rock artists

• staging weekly demonstrations with signs and banners at the busy corner of 95th & Western