CHICAGO — Thousands of protesters marched through downtown Sunday in one of the city’s largest demonstrations in years, airing grievances about war, climate change and a wide range of other complaints as world leaders assembled for a NATO summit.
The protest, which for months had stirred worries about violence in the streets, drew together a broad assortment of participants, including peace activists joining with war veterans and people more focused on economic inequality. But the diversity of opinions also sowed doubts about whether there were too many messages to be effective.
Some of the most enduring images of the event were likely to be from the end — when a small group of demonstrators clashed with a line of police who tried to keep them from the lakeside convention center where President Barack Obama was hosting the gathering.
The protesters tried to move east toward McCormick Place, with some hurling sticks and bottles at police. Officers responded by swinging their clubs. The two sides were locked in a standoff for nearly two hours, with police blocking the protesters’ path and the crowd refusing to leave. Some protesters appeared to have blood streaming down their faces.
Authorities were seen making arrests one by one and leading individual demonstrators away in handcuffs.
Esther Westlake, a recent graduate of Northeastern Illinois University, marveled at the size of the crowd. She said she had been involved in anti-war marches in Chicago before the war in Iraq but that she had never seen one this big.
“It’s crazy. There’s so many people here,” she said. “Having NATO in town is kind of exciting.”
Some participants wondered whether the protest agenda was too unfocused to get the diplomats’ attention.
“It seems like there’s so many messages and people aren’t really sure what they want to get accomplished,” Westlake said. “People just need to figure out what their argument is going to be.”
Some participants called for the dissolution of NATO, the 63-year-old military alliance that is holding its 25th formal meeting in Chicago. It is the first time the summit has been held in a U.S. city other than Washington.
“Basically, NATO is used to keep the poor poor and the rich rich,” said John Schraufnagel, who traveled from Minneapolis to Chicago for the march. Since the end of the Cold War, he said, the alliance has become “the enforcement arm of the ruling 1 percent, of the capitalist 1 percent.”
