Mt. Greenwood & Beverly South Side residents stage silent protest against gang-related funerals at Mount Hope Cemetery

More than 200 local residents, fed up with what they perceive to be dangerous gang-related black funeral processions rolling through their Beverly and Mount Greenwood communities, were staging a silent protest Saturday afternoon.

Residents gathered at the west end of Kennedy Park and were headed south to Mount Hope Cemetery at 115th Street and Washtenaw Avenue. Families with children showed up to voice their opposition to what they say are unruly processions, where funeral-goers hang out of car windows, flash gang signs, carry guns and snarl traffic.

“We are not protesting funeral processions,” organizer Tony Bansley said. “We are protesting gang activity coming into our community and Mount Hope.”

Bansley, 42, a lifelong resident of the Beverly community, said he spent the better part of this year collecting hard evidence to support their claims. Among that evidence, photos he snapped of a funeral procession last summer going into Mount Hope Cemetery, where a woman was hanging out a car window, completely topless.

CLICK FOR THE FULL DETAILS