Summary
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,...
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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17 items on 1968 Democratic Convention
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Preserving at a pace
It is hard to fathom today just how dark things looked for the people trying to save old buildings in Chicago a half century ago. In 1957, the city organized its first landmarks commission, a toothless agency that hung plaques on 39 historic buildings,...Tags: Monuments and Heritage Sites, Stock Broking, Jane Jacobs, Stocks, Tourism and Leisure
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Clinton's 'briar patch' scenario
The Swampby Jim Tankersley At the end of a rally in Oregon last month, during a question-and-answer session with the candidate, a woman asked Barack Obama about his campaign's battle with Hillary Clinton's over how to count delegates from two disputed......Tags: John McCain, Hillary Clinton, The White House, Elections, Political Candidates
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When U.S. was at war with itself
Sun Movie Critic(B) "Chicago 10 - 10; History - 7," you may think to yourself as you leave Brett Morgen's skillful documentary depiction of what became known in 1969 as the Chicago Conspiracy Trial. That's not just because most people refer to the group on trial as...Tags: Defendants, Richard J. Daley, Trials, Hank Azaria, Nick Nolte
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Lost Chicago, found on film
Tribune reporterMore than half a century ago, during the filming of "Call Northside 777" in Chicago, Jimmy Stewart walked up the sidewalk and entered a tavern at 1034 N. Milwaukee Ave. Behind him was a typical street scene of the era -- a row of close-packed commercial...Tags: Chicago Bulls, Chicago Auto Show, Soldier Field, Trump Tower, Chicago Skyline
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'Chicago 10' (1968 Democratic Convention conspiracy trial gets animated)
Tribune arts criticThe flashes of heat in our current presidential campaign are mere sparks to the flames of 1968, that pivotal period in the conflagration known as the Sixties. There were years of stoking. Growing rage over Vietnam. A civil rights struggle. A generational...Tags: Defendants, Richard J. Daley, Trials, Martin Luther King Jr., Hank Azaria
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'Chicago 10'
Los Angeles Times Staff WriterWhat constitutes a documentary and what doesn't is a subject that's been hotly debated in the last decade or so. Whatever the merits of each side of the argument, it's undeniable that the genre has changed radically, with the most interesting docs filling...Tags: Defendants, Punishment, Trials, Robert Evans, Sociology
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Steven Spielberg has eye on Chicago Seven movie
Spielberg tells Vanity Fair magazine he is developing "The Trial of the Chicago Seven," a film about Vietnam War demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic Convention. "We're in the process right now ... of doing a feasibility study of what actors are...Tags: Steven Spielberg
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ARMOUR & CO.
No telling just yet if a writers strike is going to affect things, but filmmaker Steven Spielberg (right) is scouting locations around town for "The Trial of the Chicago 7," which was written by Aaron Sorkin ("The West Wing"). The film focuses on the...Tags: Weaponry, Steven Spielberg
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Hopkins grad primed for Sundance
Sun Movie CriticRocket Science, an unconventional coming-of-age yarn that the Johns Hopkins University grad Jeffrey Blitz filmed in Baltimore two summers ago, will premiere at this year's Sundance Film Festival, which kicks off today in Park City, Utah. "I'd be lying if...Tags: Dakota Fanning, Longford Corporation, Jim Broadbent, Johns Hopkins University, Film Festivals
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Paraphrasing the '60s
TODD GITLIN teaches journalism at Columbia University. His next book, "The Bulldozer and the Big Tent," will be published by John Wiley this fall.THE NEWS burst forth this week that eight former radicals, all or almost all of them said to have been members of a Marxist-Leninist fragment called the Black Liberation Army (a small breakaway from the faction-ridden Black Panthers) had been arrested &#...Tags: Richard Nixon, Trials, Book, Defense, Government
May 4, 2008
|Story| Chicago Tribune
Jun 1, 2008
|Blog| Chicago Tribune
Mar 14, 2008
|Story| Baltimore Sun
Jan 29, 2008
|Story| Chicago Tribune
Feb 28, 2008
|Story| Chicago Tribune
Feb 29, 2008
|Story| Los Angeles Times
Jan 3, 2008
|Story| Chicago Tribune
Nov 4, 2007
|Story| Chicago Tribune
Jan 18, 2007
|Story| Baltimore Sun
Jan 27, 2007
|Story| Los Angeles Times
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