Highlights
For five days in August, the nation's Democrats assembled in Chicago to nominate a presidential candidate at a convention that would quickly spiral out of control and reflect the domestic chaos of the Vietnam era. Between 10,000 and 15,000 demonstrators were arrayed against 12,000 police and 6,000 National Guard troops, with an international press contingent of more than 1,000 on hand to record events inside the International Amphitheatre and outside at locations from Lincoln Park to Grant Park. Chants of "the whole world is watching" were broadcast as hippies, Yippies and the National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam (Mobe) clashed with police at dozens of locations. The climax came W...
For five days in August, the nation's Democrats assembled in Chicago to nominate a presidential candidate at a convention that would quickly spiral out of control and reflect the domestic chaos of the Vietnam era. Between 10,000 and 15,000 demonstrators were arrayed against 12,000 police and 6,000 National Guard troops, with an international press contingent of more than 1,000 on hand to record events inside the International Amphitheatre and outside at locations from Lincoln Park to Grant Park. Chants of "the whole world is watching" were broadcast as hippies, Yippies and the National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam (Mobe) clashed with police at dozens of locations. The climax came Wednesday night, as a melee broke out near the Conrad Hilton Hotel across from Grant Park, and police began beating bystanders as well as protesters, using clubs, fists, knees and Mace. Some militants fought back with their own caustic sprays, bottles and concrete chunks, enraging police all the more. Officers pushed people through a plate-glass window and then, according to witnesses, attacked the dazed victims as they lay amid broken glass. A group of police cheered a soldier as he bashed a demonstrator and attacked a photographer who filmed the scene. About an hour later, film of the violence was shown at the Amphitheatre, with the effect of a thunderbolt. Sen. Abraham Ribicoff, at the podium to place Sen. George McGovern's name in nomination, decried the use of "Gestapo tactics." A livid Mayor Daley stood up as TV cameras zoomed in but what he shouted has never been precisely determined. Later that night, as the riots continued, Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota easily won the nomination. There were hundreds of injuries, but no deaths. A national inquiry chaired by Chicago Crime Commission director Daniel Walker, later elected governor of Illinois, called the confrontations a "police riot." The city's version, called "What Trees Do They Plant?" blamed the disturbances on extremists and provocateurs. The tumult led to the infamous Chicago 8 trial, later the Chicago 7 trial, in which organizers were charged in federal indictments with rioting and conspiring to riot. They were: Bobby Seale, head of the Black Panthers; Tom Hayden, co-founder of SDS; Dennis Roberts, an Oakland-based civil rights lawyer; Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, founders of the Youth International Party, or Yippies; veteran pacifist and Mobe leader David Dellinger; and academics Lee Weiner and John Froines.
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Chance for the community to create change
You could almost hear the world's collective sigh of relief. This year's U.S. presidential election was a global event in every sense. Barack Hussein Obama, the son of a black Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii,...Tags: Iraq War, Wars and Interventions, Frederick Douglass, The White House, Sarah Palin
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Barack Obama elected 44th President of the United States
Associated Press WriterDemocrat Barack Obama wrote his name indelibly into the pages of American history Tuesday, engineering a social and political upheaval to become the country's first black president-elect in a runaway victory over Republican John McCain. Less than an hour...Tags: John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Abraham Lincoln, National Government, Joe Biden
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CHANGE
In 1967, I became a Chicagoan—by moving to a third-floor walk-up apartment in Wicker Park—and a journalist—by landing a job as an assistant editor at the Tribune-owned American, one of four major dailies here at that time. This past...Tags: Wicker Park, Poetry, National Government, Demonstration, Government
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'Stories Done: Writings on the 1960s and Its Discontents' by Mikal Gilmore
The revolution -- the one that took place in the 1960s -- was in fact televised. The music, the antiwar movement, the drug culture and the social upheaval of the era became major benefactors of the first wave of saturation media coverage. To the...Tags: Culture, Johnny Cash, Jack Kerouac, Jim Morrison, Popular Music
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Voice of the People
Wiping away the stain of 1968 As I sat watching the election returns with my wife, both of us choking back our emotions, I realized the significance and wisdom of Barack Obama choosing Grant Park as the site of his acceptance rally. It is impossible to...Tags: Colin Powell, Richard J. Daley, Election Day, Abraham Lincoln, National Government
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'Independent Lens'
9 p.m., WTTW-Ch. 11 The real thing was cartoonish to begin with, thanks to some of the defendants' antics. But "Chicago 10," which opens the documentary anthology series' new season, uses actual cartoons to revisit the infamous trial of eight men accused...Tags: Democratic National Conventions, Movies
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The early age of American irony: 'Wacky Packages' remembers consumer parody of the 1970s
AP National Writer"Wacky Packages" (Abrams, $19.95, 240 pages): When it comes to creating parody in the post-ironic world, the tools available to us are plentiful and democratic. Spend a half hour with Photoshop and your throwaway burst of creativity can convincingly...Tags: Wine, Beer, and Spirits, Philosophy, Consumers, Procter & Gamble Company, Andy Warhol
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What's on TV tonight: The wacky trial of Chicago 10
The crazy political theater of the Chicago trials following the 1968 Democratic Convention is relived in the lively "Chicago 10," which kicks off the new season of the indispensable Independent Lens (9 p.m., WPBT-Ch. 2, WXEL-Ch. 42). The 3D reanimation of...Tags: Television, Clothing and Textiles Industry, Television Industry, Trials, Democratic National Conventions
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TODAY'S PICKS
WORLD SERIES (8 p.m., Fox/5) - Game one: Philadelphia Phillies vs. Tampa Bay Rays, from Tropicana Field. Tim McCarver and Joe Buck call the game. NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE (8 p.m., CBS/2) - When a talent scout recruits Ritchie to audition for a...Tags: Baseball, All Stars, Tampa Bay Rays, Major League Baseball, Democratic National Conventions
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New Season Of 'Celebrity Rehab'; Weird Sitcom 'Living With The Wolfman'
It would seem to be the most inexcusably invasive of the celebrity stalking shows, where once-familiar faces are now ravaged and at their worst, for our entertainment. And certainly the roster for the second season of "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew"...Tags: Television, Rod Stewart, Jeff Conaway, Popular Music, Celebrity
Nov 12, 2008
|Resource Link| Chicago Tribune
Nov 13, 2008
|Story| Hampton Roads Daily Press
Nov 4, 2008
|Story| Orlando Sentinel
Nov 4, 2008
|Resource Link| Chicago Tribune
Nov 9, 2008
|Story| Chicago Tribune
Nov 6, 2008
|Story| Los Angeles Times
Nov 6, 2008
|Story| Chicago Tribune
Oct 22, 2008
|Story| Chicago Tribune
Oct 27, 2008
|Story| Associated Press
Oct 22, 2008
|Story| South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Oct 22, 2008
|Story| Newsday
Oct 19, 2008
|Column| Hartford Courant
Original site for 1968 Democratic Convention topic gallery.
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