The 1968 DNC Protests
—Christina
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The 1968 United States presidential election was held amongst a year of social and political upheaval. Worldwide protests addressed colonialism and apartheid, racism, sexism, capitalism, and ongoing war. In the US, these focused on civil and women’s rights movements and the Vietnam war. These were key issues in the primaries for both parties. The Republican nomination was not in question: despite a half-hearted challenge from Nelson Rockefeller, Richard Nixon led the primaries and had the nomination essentially secured by the convention.
The Democrats, however, were not so organized. Late in 1967, Minnesota senator Eugene McCarthy announced his challenge to the incumbent president, Lynden Johnson, for the Democratic nomination. He had support, particularly because he presented himself as the antiwar candidate. Due to this challenge, and other issues, President Johnson announced in March 1968 that he would not be seeking a second term. The Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, had not planned to run in this election, but now inherited Johnson’s delegates. The other main candidate was Robert Kennedy, who had been Attorney General under his brother, John.
The Civil Rights movement took a major blow on 4 April with the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Demonstrations expressing grief spontaneously erupted across the country; most were peaceful gatherings or marches, but some became violent and expanded into riots. Chicago was one of the cities that saw violence, which caused them to treat any demonstration as a potential riot, an expectation that became a self-fulfilling prophesy for the August convention.
Going into the summer, Humphrey was in the lead with Kennedy not far behind, and McCarthy trailing both. Neither Humphrey nor McCarthy seemed to inspire voters, but Kennedy got the attention of young people and those who had been disillusioned by Johnson’s policies. Things seemed to be lining up for another Nixon vs. Kennedy race, with Bobby this time, instead of Jack. Then, on 5 June, Kennedy was assassinated. His death, following so soon after Dr. King’s, undermined the feeling of progress on civil rights and the other social issues for which both men stood. The Democrats were left with two uninspiring candidates who did not seem able to connect with young voters. This, combined with a Republican ticket that seemed to be catering to the former Confederacy via Nixon’s Southern Strategy, created a feeling that electoral politics would not or could not address the real issues of the day.
In the months prior to the convention, various advocacy and protest groups planned demonstrations for the area around the convention. Initially, they intended to show the lack of support for Johnson and his handling of Vietnam. After the President announced he was not running, the demonstrators shifted to showing support for the antiwar candidate, McCarthy. Then, when it appeared Bobby Kennedy would win the nomination, some questioned if protesting would be needed at all. After RFK’s death, the plan coalesced around forcing an antiwar stance on the Democratic party’s platform and/or preventing Humphrey from stealing the nomination. Between the back-and-forth of the candidates and the way Mayor Daley was expected to react to demonstrations, some groups decided it was better to avoid Chicago altogether.
One group, the Youth International Party, better known as the Yippies, came with a schedule of events that included concerts, training in non-violent self-defense, beach parties, barbeques, meditation sessions, as well as a field day called the “Yippie Olympics.” Abbie Hoffman, one of the group’s founders and leaders, called their schedule a “Festival of Life,” opposing it to the convention, which he called a “Festival of Death.” The Yippies upstaged everyone, including the Black Panthers, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Mobilization Committee Against the War (MOBE), who had been planning protests for at least a year.
Violence was not part of the plan for these groups, but the events of the year made it seem likely, particularly in Chicago. Mayor Daley anticipated this by ringing the grounds of the International Amphitheater with barbed wire, putting 12,000 Chicago police on extended shifts, and bringing in National Guardsmen to respond as needed. He also ordered that no permits be granted for demonstrations or marches. Though it reduced the overall number of people coming to the city, it did prevent them from expressing themselves in an organized way, likely contributing to the tensions felt between them and the police.
Protests began on Friday, 23 August, three days before the convention started, with the Yippie protest in a plaza near the convention center in which they held a nomination vote for their presidential candidate, a pig, aptly named Pigasus. Some people were arrested for disturbing the peace, but it was otherwise pretty quiet. The next day, marches and pickets were conducted in front of the hotels where delegates were staying and the convention venue, the International Amphitheatre. These protests continued through the night, prompting arrests, which fueled more protests, including stones thrown at police and their cars.
On Sunday, 25 August, MOBE had scheduled a march on the Loop and the Yippies had a music festival planned in Grant Park. Issues around where the sound equipment was supposed to be plugged in caused confusion when they were shut down mid-song. Abbie Hoffman tried to bring a flatbed truck into the park, which the police tried to stop, fearing he would use it as a rostrum from which to provoke the crowd. Their attempts to stop him caused just that. Hoffman announced that the police had stopped the concert and used it as a teaching moment in how a protest crowd should disperse to avoid arrest. Police began pushing protesters out of the park and got violent when the nearby street was blocked by the crowd. Dozens of people, including uninvolved journalists and bystanders, were clubbed by police.
Monday and Tuesday were relatively quiet, with only a few minor conflicts between demonstrators and police. Late on Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, protestors assembled around the Conrad Hilton hotel. A little after 2 am, the National Guardsmen who had been waiting for orders from Mayor Daley were called to prevent the protestors from getting to the hotel. When they started to push through, a battle between the protestors, the National Guard, and the police began that lasted nearly twenty minutes. This came to be known as the “Battle of Michigan Avenue.” At the same time, the police were using tear gas and dump trucks to clear people out of Lincoln Park. The violence used against the protestors was nearly universally condemned as disproportionate. These events were recorded and broadcast by the journalists who were there to cover the convention, some of whom were also caught up in the violence. 100 protestors and 119 police were injured, and six hundred people were arrested.
That evening saw Hubert Humphrey nominated as the Democratic party candidate. The next day, some of the convention delegates joined protestors for a march. Despite the inclusion of the political notables, the demonstration was stopped with tear gas and clubs. This was the end of the protests, as the convention was also over.
A subsequent investigation by the Department of Justice found there was no reason to prosecute the protestors and that it was primarily the police who had caused the violence. The events of 28 August are called a “police riot” in the report, saying that while some had provoked the police, most had intended to picket and march and express themselves peacefully. Some of the protesters were tried for incitement and various other charges related to the demonstrations and mostly acquitted. There were a few convictions on charges of contempt and similar reasons, which jail sentences lasting from a few months to a little less than four years. Of the police involved, eight were tried for assault and/or perjury and all were acquitted.
The events in Chicago prompted an overhaul of the methods by which the parties chose their candidates, leading to the modern system of primaries, which is much more democratic because it allows voters to choose the candidates.