Truth Tour site on three bridges over the Kennedy Expressway through downtown Chicago, July 12 [Photo by EJS]
The Pro-Life Action League’s Summer Face the Truth Tour concluded Saturday, July 15 with three sweltering sites in the near north suburbs of Chicago. The final sites in Niles, Evanston and Lincolnwood were well-attended and effective despite the the intense heat wave that hit the area that day.
Trouble With Police as Tour Starts
The Tour began the previous Saturday in the far north suburbs, including a stop in Mundelein, IL when the Tour was forced to leave town for the first time since the League began conducting Tours in 2000.
The League also encountered unusual trouble with police in Chicago, most notably a Cook County Forest Preserve officer who demanded the Tour leave the corner of 87th Street and Pulaski Avenue for reasons he never made clear, and which were eventually dismissed by his sergeant. Chicago police also raised some objections the the Tour’s two-morning stop on the Kennedy overpasses, but the display was allowed to remain.
Truth Tour site in Mokena, IL, July 14 [Photo by EJS]
Tour Visits Chicago, Suburbs and Outlying Areas
The Tour also visited Libertyville, Barrington, Orland Park, Mokena, Loves Park and Rockford, where a woman named Margo stopped to thank us for being there. She said she chose not to abort her daughter Ariana, now two years old, thanks to seeing such a display—possibly the League’s 2004 Tour. The Tour’s largest turnout was in Joliet, where activist Ted Castro single-handedly recruited scores of volunteers.
In the City of Chicago, the Tour also visited the Mount Greenwood, Beverly, Bogan neighborhoods, as well as Buckingham Fountain, the Art Institute and Daley Plaza. A handful of counter-protestors appeared at the downtown sites with their usual, silly, handmade signs, one of which targeted Tour captain Eric Scheidler with the lie that he supports “terrorism against doctors.”
Eric Scheidler (from left), Nate Scheidler and John Jansen pose with a Malachi sign in front of an ironic sculpture near the final Tour site on McCormick Blvd. in Lincolnwood, IL, July 15 [Photo by Sam Scheidler]
Neil Steinberg Column Highlights Tour
Pro-abortion Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg passed by the Tour twice on Wednesday, July 12 in downtown Chicago and stopped to talk to Joe Scheidler. He wrote a column on the pro-life campaign that, despite several digs at pro-lifers, admits our display is effective and that our opponents seem dejected, refusing even to give their names to a sympathetic reporter like him.
The League’s Tour schedule will resume with monthly Truth Days starting in August and continuing until November.
See also:
- Truth Tour Banned in Mundelein, Illinois
- Neil Steinberg’s Chicago Sun-Times column on Face the Truth
- Joe Scheidler on the Tour in his July 11, July 15 and July 17 Hotlines
