Democratic convention fails to meet uncommitted delegate deadline for Palestinian speaker

After a daylong sit-in, uncommitted delegates entered the United Center to take their seats among their state delegations on the Democratic national convention floor.

The Democratic convention failed to make a 6pm CT deadline that the ceasefire delegates had set for a final decision on allowing a Palestinian American to speak from the main stage.

At a press conference outside the convention, movement leaders said they do not plan to disrupt the events inside the convention Thursday. They did say they are calling for Kamala Harris or senior members of her team to meet with the uncommitted movement in Michigan to talk about a ceasefire and arms embargo. They set a 15 September deadline for a meeting.

Abbas Alawieh, a leader of the uncommitted movement and an uncommitted delegate from Michigan, denounced the convention’s failure to listen to their demands.

“The scandal is that there are forces within Democratic party leadership who do not want us to talk about Palestinian human rights,” he said. “They’re out of step with the majority of the Democratic base, the majority of Democratic voters who believe that Palestinian human rights are a priority.”

Ruwa Romman, a Georgia state representative who wrote a speech for the convention to consider, read her speech to the crowd gathered outside. Earlier on Thursday, Mother Jones published the text, which began: “I’m honored to be the first Palestinian elected to public office in the great state of Georgia and the first Palestinian to ever speak at the Democratic national convention.”

“Let’s commit to each other, to electing Vice-President Harris and defeating Donald Trump who uses my identity as a Palestinian as a slur,” she said in her speech. “Let’s fight for the policies long overdue – from restoring access to abortions to ensuring a living wage, to demanding an end to reckless war and a ceasefire in Gaza.”

The group held an impromptu sit-in on Wednesday and Thursday after weeks of attempts to get a speaker on the main stage at the convention. The movement had first requested that Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan, a doctor who worked in Gaza, and a Palestinian American leader take the stage, and then streamlined the request to a Palestinian American leader.

About a dozen of those in the movement stayed overnight on the pavement outside the United Center, catching whatever sleep they could. The police did not attempt to get them to leave.

A group of delegates have fought using the Democratic party process to demand change internally, while protesters have also demonstrated across Chicago this week in separate actions.

Related: ‘We can’t just vote’: protesters gather in Chicago for Gaza and abortion rights before Democratic convention

Outside the convention perimeter, anti-war protesters gathered for the second March on the Democratic convention after a week of demonstrations around the city that at times ended in arrests.

Thousands of pro-Palestinian activists left Union Park in Chicago to march past the convention center, where Harris is expected to accept the Democratic nomination Thursday.

Protesters holding flags and signs calling Harris “Killer Kamala” demanded an end to US military aid to Israel. Michael, who said his family was Palestinian and Irish, said that he was marching to “demand that the US stop funding genocide” and said that Harris “needs to listen to us and empathize with ordinary Palestinians”.

“Right now, we’ve been locked out and exiled,” he said.

The protesters chanted: “Antifada! Revolution!” “End the occupation!” “It is right to rebel! Democrats go to hell!” “Just like 1968! Nothing here to celebrate!”

Hundreds of police officers, some in riot helmets, lined the protest route near the United Center.

Protest organizers estimated Thursday’s March on the DNC drew about 11,000 demonstrators and that Monday’s march saw 20,000.

“The final impression of this week is that a combined 30,000+ people from communities the Democrats claim to represent marched on the DNC to demand a stop to the genocide and an end to all US aid to Israel,” said Nadiah Alyafai, member of the US Palestinian Community Network.

The Uncommitted National Movement launched in Michigan in the Democratic primaries as a way for voters who disapprove of the US policies on the Gaza war to register their discontent with the Biden administration. From Michigan, it spread across the states, with more than 700,000 people casting some version of an uncommitted vote.

These voters won 30 uncommitted delegates to the convention. Those delegates have worked to build their power by convincing Harris delegates to sign on as “ceasefire delegates” who agree with demands of a ceasefire and arms embargo.

Supporters, including members of Congress, union leaders and Democratic organizers, underscored the speaker request, saying the convention needed to change course.

James Zogby, the founder and president of the Arab American Institute, was the last Arab American to speak from the main stage of the Democratic convention, in 1988. He told the Guardian the convention’s decision to deny a Palestinian American speaker an “an unforced error, a kind of a bonehead move that is going to cost them votes and didn’t need to”.

“This is what’s called a real stupid, boneheaded mistake, to end up literally dumping on your own story that ought to be about the convention and Kamala Harris and hope and joy and all that. And instead, we’re talking about a dumb mistake made by consultants to exclude Palestinian voices,” Zogby said.

According to Waleed Shahid, a progressive strategist and member of the uncommitted movement, the Harris campaign senior staff made “a lot of different offers to get this to end, none of which had to do with getting a Palestinian American on stage”.

“They gave us mid-level staff, they gave us senior staff. They gave us random senators, random members of the House. They were like, this member of the House is inside. They’ll meet with you,” Shahid said.

Democratic party officials said “tonight is going to be vice-president Harris’s biggest speech of her life, and it needs to be about her. But we have given them two months, and we had Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. So we did not put them in this position,” Layla Elabed, a leader of the uncommitted movement, said.