Grant Park Festival to Honor the Earth

The largest Earth Day festival since 1990 will be held in GrantPark Sunday, with rock music, speeches, environmental exhibits,vegetarian food and puppet shows.

Organizers hope to draw between 50,000 and 100,000 people.Environmental groups also have scheduled smaller Earth Day events inthe city and suburbs throughout the week.

The Grant Park festival begins at 9 a.m. with a five-milewalk-a-thon to raise money for environmental programs and communityand school activities.

Main stage events begin at 11 a.m. with a multiculturalperformance. Speeches by environmentalists and politicians willfollow, alternating with sets of live rock and jazz. California hiphop artist A.K. Black will perform his "eco-rap" at 2 p.m. Thefestival ends at 6 p.m.

The youth stage will include storytelling, theater, puppet show,magic show, rap and break-dancing. On the midway, there will beexhibits by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ChicagoEnvironment Department and Earth Day Store.

The festival will be held in Arvey Field, north of Field Museum.The CTA has added extra buses that stop at or near the site. Takethe No. 1 Indiana/Hyde Park, No. 3 King Drive, No. 4 Cottage Grove,No. 6 Jeffrey Express or No. 146 Marine/Michigan Express. There alsowill be free, secured parking for bicycles.

Drive if you must, but parking is tight, and you might get dirtylooks.

The first Earth Day in 1970 helped launch the environmentalmovement. There were trash-ins, write-ins and teach-ins inCalifornia, a Dead Orange Parade in Miami and a Survival March inBoston. J. Edgar Hoover sent FBI agents to spy on a rally inWashington, D.C. In Chicago, 6,000 young people rallied at DaleyPlaza, and Mayor Richard J. Daley proposed jail sentences forpolluters.

Earth Day languished throughout most of the 1970s and 1980s butrevived in 1990, when more than 100,000 people attended a festival inLincoln Park.

Last year's Earth Day passed nearly unnoticed. Music and otherentertainment scheduled for Daley Center were canceled because theplaza was filled with emergency vehicles related to the Loop flood.