50 Tears Ago Today: Chicago

On Wednesday, August 28, 1968, the news programs were filled with images and video that made my blood boil. The young and the not-so-young were demonstrating against the immoral Vietnam War in Chicago, home to that year’s Democratic National Convention. Mayor Richard Daley, no friend of young people or demonstrators, ordered his police to use whatever force necessary to disperse the thousands in the street and in the parks. Wikipedia does a good job of summing up the story; read it here. As you may know, the Walker Report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence called what happened that night a police riot.

I wasn’t in Chicago on the 28th but I was so angry over what was happening to “my people” that I went in the next night to join the protests. I clearly remember thinking that I might get tear-gassed, beaten or arrested, and that all of that would be ok.

I spent the night in Grant Park, opposite the Conrad Hilton Hotel where the delegates were staying. Thursday was much quieter than the night before and the mass attacks we had seen on TV were not repeated. I was neither beaten or arrested, but I was tear-gassed, an experience I’m glad to have never had again. Most of the night though was spent chanting anti-war slogans, smoking and rapping with fellow protestors. I headed home to Aurora and my VISTA post early in the morning.

1968 was an incredibly divisive and emotional year for all of us. Several of the year’s pivotal events had direct impacts on my life: Martin Luther King’s assassination forced me away from my brand new training site in the west side of Chicago and eventually led me to Aurora, IL, instead. Later, I spent two weeks in Resurrection City on the National Mall, supporting a group of Aurora locals who had come to join the protests. I was there when Bobby Kennedy was killed and tried to get to Arlington National Cemetery for his burial, but that was not possible. And then there was Chicago.

Fifty years later we once again live in a tumultuous time. I tend to write checks in support of liberal causes, rather than march in protests, but the way things are going, I may be joining the protests once again. Who’d have ever thought that possible?

So your brother's bound and gagged and they've chained him to a chair
Won't you please come to Chicago just to sing?
In a land that's known as freedom how can such a thing be fair?
Won't you please come to Chicago for the help that we can bring?
We can change the world
Rearrange the world
It's dying . . .
To get better
Politicians sit yourselves down there's nothing for you here.
Won't you please come to Chicago for a ride?
Don't ask Jack to help you 'cause he'll turn the other ear.
Won't you please come to Chicago or else join the other side?

We can change the world
Rearrange the world
It's dying . . .
To get better

Graham Nash, from the album Songs for Beginners