"History They Didn 't Teach You in School"--August 29th: 1968 Democratic Conventi : Houston Indymedia

On August 29th 1968, Hubert Humprey accepted the Democratic nomination for president in Chicago, while outside the Chicago police, acting on orders from Mayor Richard Daley, were beating hundreds of antiwar demonstrators in the streets in one of the more famous and horrid scenes of the 1960s.

By mid-1968, Americans all across the spectrum of society had turned against the war, in their local communities, churches, businesses, and legislative bodies. The heart of the antiwar movement however was in the streets as millions were demonstrating against the war in 1966, 1967, and 1968. As the war dragged on, with the death and destruction of Vietnam growing, protestors began to plan on making a strong antiwar statement at the Democratic convention scheduled for August in Chicago. Their tactics would be both serious–having rallies and demonstrations–and more lighthearted. With regard to the latter, in 1968, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Allen Ginsberg, folk-protest singer Phil Ochs, and rock groups Country Joe and the Fish and The Fugs founded the Youth International Party, better known as the Yippies. The Yippies received tremendous media coverage, especially for their plans to disrupt the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago with dancing bears and a pig--named "Pigasus"--that they would nominate for president and then eat. Among the yippies' demands besides an end to the war in Vietnam were the legalization of all drugs, the abolition of money, the disarmament of police, and "fucking in the streets."

The attention focused on the Yippies, though sensational, did not reflect typical opposition to the war. Indeed, "mainstream" America was turning against continued involvement in Vietnam as well. Wall Street began to call for an end to the hostilities because of the drain the war was causing on the American economy. Walter Cronkite, America's most respected newsman, had called on Lyndon Johnson to begin withdrawing from Vietnam and seeking a negotiated peace. African-Americans, generally supportive of LBJ, also began to turn on him as Martin Luther King and other black leaders increasingly spoke out against a war in which blacks, though only about 12 percent of the population, were accounting for nearly a third of the casualties. Then, on top of the Tet Offensive in January and February, which had caused a sense of crisis about Vietnam, King was killed in April, and the war and urban rebellion converged. In a real sense, the violence of Vietnam had come home as cities burned and the hopes of a generation were shattered. Businessmen, moms, and young radicals all protested the war together, posing a mainstream assault on the Johnson administration. Some younger activists gave up on the system and dropped out of society or joined militant groups. Some hoped to reform the political structure from within and worked on the other candidates' campaigns, only to see Bobby Kennedy too assassinated and Eugene McCarthy lose the nomination. By mid-1968, the country was terribly divided over Vietnam and the war was about to come home.

So, in August, at the Democratic convention, tens of thousands of demonstrators fought street battles with local police forces. Chicago's mayor, Richard Daley, in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had planted provocateurs in the crowd to incite the protestors. On 25 August, 150 police, wielding tear gas and night sticks, attacked an encampment in Lincoln Park. The next day, the protestors struck back with rocks and bottles, and in turn 5000 army troops were sent into Chicago. After that, local cops stripped themselves of their badges and uniforms and went on a rampage with clubs and mace, injuring hundreds.

By 29 August, all hell broke loose as several thousand demonstrators marched on the convention headquarters at the Hilton. As officers charged into the crowd, some yelling "Kill, Kill," young people chanted "the whole world is watching." Inside the convention, Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff was attacking the "gestapo tactics" of the police in the streets, while Daley mouthed "sit down you fucking Jew" to him. Surveying the wreckage of Chicago, the radical journalist I.F. Stone could only lament that "the war is destroying our country as we are destroying Vietnam."

Ironically, the Chicago police attack on protestors occurred at the precise time that the Soviet Union was sending tanks into Czechoslovakia to crush a liberation movement there. In August 1968 then, the world's great empires, the U.S. and the USSR, converged, both using force to end the hopes of their people for democracy and peace.

Further readings:

(There are tons of books about the 1960s and 1968 in particular, including my Vietnam and the Transformation of American Life [shameless plus] so the few below are just starters if you're interested. I teach a class in the '60s at UH every couple of years if you're a student there and interested.)

Edward P. Morgan, The Sixties Experience
James Miller, Democracy Is In the Streets
Norman Mailer, Miami and the Siege of Chicago
Charles Kaiser, 1968 in America
David Caute, The Year of the Barricades
Robert Mann, The Walls of Jericho

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http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2003/07/13847.php (Populism)

http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2003/07/14072.php (Cuba and John Quincy Adams)

http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2003/07/14191.php (Origins of Gulf War)

http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2003/07/14191.php (Gulf of Tonkin)

http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2003/08/12932.php (Atomic Bomb)

http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2003/08/14393.php (Berlin Wall)

http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2003/08/14843.php (Woodstock)

http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2003/08/14855.php (Coup in Iran)

http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2003/08/14969.php (Haitian Revolution)