芝加哥市长伊曼纽在几个月前提出要关闭部分芝加哥公立学校，以充分利用学校资源，节省不必要的开支，最初拟定的关闭学校数字高达200所，引起了轩然大波和多方的强烈反对。在努力了几个月后，芝加哥公立学校董事会终于5月22日本週三做出决定，列出了要关闭的49所小学和1所中学的名单。
关闭学校的决定招来了诸多反对声音。辖区内有学校上「关门榜」的区长表示，学校是将社区凝聚在一起的核心，关闭学校就等于解体了一个社区。芝加哥教师工会更是于上週向联邦法院提交了两项诉讼，力图阻止关闭学校的措施，并表示伊曼纽将为此遭受政治上的打击。
九岁小男孩Asean Johnson5月20日带着自己的人马在芝加哥市中心戴利广场演讲，准备和市长战斗。演讲后有芝加哥人表示支持他在2025年参加芝加哥市长竞选甚至参选总统。
演讲全文：
Good evening, or, good morning. My name's Asean Johnson. I'm from Marcus Garvey School, located on103rd and Morgan. I come to you today to talk about the school closings. Rahm Emanuel thinks that we all are toys; he thinks he can just come into our schools and move all our kids all over they lines, and just say,"Oh, we can build a building right here. Let's just take this school out--we don't care about these kids." But it's kids in there. They need safety.
Rahm Emanuel is not caring about our schools; he is not caring about our safety. He only cares about his kids. He only care about what he needs. He do not care about nobody else but himself.
He let Barbara Byrd-Bennett, a woman that's from Detroit who don't even know the streets of Chicago where I'm from, come in and close these schools. She should not be closing these schools. They need safety and protection. You should be investing in these schools, not closing them. You should be supporting these schools, not closing them.
WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED TODAY!
We are going to City Hall, we're confronting Rahm Emanuel. We are not toys. We are not going, not without a fight. Like Martin Luther King said, like--I forgot his name but--he said that it is90% of school closings are African American. This is racism right here. This is racism. We are black and we are proud! We are white and we are proud! No matter what the color is, no matter if you're Asian, Chinese, it doesn't matter, you should not be closing these schools without walking into them and seeing what is happening in these schools!
EDUCATION IS OUR RIGHT, THAT IS WHY WE HAVE TO FIGHT!
EDUCATION IS OUR RIGHT, THAT IS WHY WE HAVE TO FIGHT!
EDUCATION IS OUR RIGHT, THAT IS WHY WE HAVE TO FIGHT!
EDUCATION IS OUR RIGHT, THAT IS WHY WE HAVE TO FIGHT!
EDUCATION IS OUR RIGHT, THAT IS WHY WE HAVE TO FIGHT!
EDUCATION IS OUR RIGHT, THAT IS WHY WE HAVE TO FIGHT!
EDUCATION IS OUR RIGHT, THAT IS WHY WE HAVE TO FIGHT!
