1968 Democratic National Convention Riots
Police dressed in riot gear surround you as loud pops can be heard coming from random locations within their line. White clouds of gas begin to rise into the air around you, everyone starts coughing and choking and some try to cover their faces with their shirts. In the confusion people run, trip, and stumble. You hear police barking orders but are unsure of what to do as your vision is now clouded and the coughing worsens. In front of you appears a dark figure and not but a second later you feel a terrible pain shoot through the side of your head as you fall to the ground. Lying on the ground you can feel multiple people battering your back and sides with hard objects. Eventually the pain fades as you slip into unconsciousness.
1960s riot police. Courtesy of Foundsf.
Political Perils
The months preceding the Democratic National Convention were fraught with political upheaval and severely threatened to tear a hole in the fabric that held the Democratic Party together. The war in Vietnam, America's longest conflict at the time, was going on its 13th year. Those who had previously supported the war were now rejecting it as casualties continued to mount day by day. To make matters worse the North Vietnamese had launched the Tet Offensive which prompted the sending of more U.S. troops, creating an atmosphere of unending war. Anti-war protesters were emboldened as more people joined their side, causing them to hold more rallies and protests all over the country. Though segregation had ended, racism still gripped the nation and there was much work left to be done. On top of that, the one most able to heal the racial divide, Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated in April and left many civil rights activists and black communities disheartened. Rampant poverty had stricken regions across the nation which discontented many. Riots proliferated the 1960s and threatened to destabilize the country.
President Lyndon B. Johnson. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
These issues severely divided the Democrat Party and made them extremely vulnerable to fracturing, especially as President Lyndon B. Johnson seeked reelection. He had won by a large margin in the previous election of 1964 but much of his support within the party was beginning to wane due to his pro-war views. In November of 1967 a senator named Eugene McCarthy announced his candidacy and ran against Johnson in the Democratic Primary. Though McCarthy was not widely recognized and relatively unknown at the time he did win 40% of the vote in New Hampshire, validating his candidacy. Not long after Robert F. Kennedy announced his campaign for the Democratic nomination.
Eugene McCarthy. Courtesy of Alpha History.
Realizing that he had fallen out of favor with his party, on March 31 President Johnson announced to a shocked nationwide television audience that he was suspending his campaign and would not run for reelection. He explained that he was doing so in order to focus more on the ongoing conflict in Southeast Asia. Later after leaving the White House Johnson would remark on this decision saying, “I’ve never felt lower in my life. How do you think it feels to be completely rejected by the party you’ve spent your life with, knowing that your name cannot be mentioned without choruses of boos and obscenities?” The next month Vice President Hubert Humphrey announced his candidacy with the backing of President Johnson. The Democrat Party had somewhat come together after Johnson dropped out but when Humphrey announced he was running the divide started once again.
Hubert Humphrey. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
States were pretty well split between these three candidates but the whole election was turned upside down when Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated on June 6, 1968, the same night he won the California primary. After the assassination another candidate would emerge. Senator George McGovern was relatively well known and liked by many in the party, but he further divided it as he and McCarthy split the delegates that had previously went to Kennedy. Oddly enough Humphrey did not officially campaign in any of the state primaries but he represented the establishment and many of the party's political bosses who controlled vast numbers of delegates wanted him to win over both McCarthy and McGovern. This meant that even though Humphrey did not win any primaries he still was favored to win the nomination because of these bosses. This fractured the party even worse, leaving it in turmoil just a month before the convention was set to start.
Robert F. Kennedy with Martin Luther King Jr. Courtesy of the US Government.
Prelude to Violence
Roughly a week before the Democratic National Convention started protest groups began showing up. Those from the Youth International Party (yippies) and the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE) and the Black Panthers came to protest the ongoing war and civil rights abuses. Mixed in with these more legitimate groups were anarchists, black militants, communists, hippies, and other shunned members of society who gave the majority middle class activists a bad image.
Poster from one of the protest groups. Courtesy of DocsTeach.
This diversity did produce some interesting results as they came up with unconventional ways to demonstrate and garner attention from the media. One odd idea was threatening to put the illicit drug LSD into the water supply, which did gain some coverage by the media. Another rumor that the activists floated around was that they were going to send out “stud teams” to seduce the wives and daughters of delegates in an effort to unnerve the Democratic administration. One stunt that gained the most attention was when they nominated an actual pig for president. They purchased a 200 pound hog from a local farm and demanded he have secret service protection just like the other candidates. Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman were the originators of the scheme and they named him “Pigasus the Immortal”. They are quoted saying, “They [the establishment] nominate a president and he eats the people. We nominate a president and the people eat him.” It is possible that “Pigasus” had the shortest presidential campaign in american history as he and his campaign staff were arrested at his first press conference in front of the Chicago Convention Center. They were cited with “exhibiting livestock” and charged with a misdemeanor. It is not known exactly what happened to the pig after his arrest but the choices almost divided the protesters. Some suggested eating him but there were many objections to this, particularly by those who did not believe in eating meat. Rubin would later write about the issue lamenting, “Vegetarianism almost destroyed us.”
Police arresting “Pigasus.” Courtesy of ACTipedia.
Between the rumors, political stunts, and peoples general dislike of anti-war protesters, the city was on edge. However Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley was determined to keep control of his city. Daley was a hardline establishment democrat who believed in law and order and was second only to President Johnson when it came to political influence. He was not one to show leniency, one notorious example of this was during the riots after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Daley had deployed much of the city’s police force and placed them under a shoot to kill order for arsonists and said to “shoot to maim or cripple anyone looting.” With this reputation it was no surprise to anyone that he took equally strong precautions as protesters began to show up and cause disturbances. He deployed all 12,000 of Chicago's police, had 5,600 National Guardsmen in reserve ready to deploy at a moment's notice, and had another 5,000 soldiers from the U.S. Army ready to be brought in if needed to meet the perceived activist threat. In addition to this he had 1,000 intelligence agents from the FBI, CIA, and other branches of the armed forces working to actively infiltrate and disrupt the protests. Bill Daley, Mayor Daley’s son, would later comment about his father's tactics in an interview saying, “. . .my father believed that he was the defender of the city."
Mayor Richard J. Daley. Couresy of ABC7 Chicago 3.
A month before the convention took place MOBE and yippie activists applied for permits to hold protests at the International Amphitheatre, Soldier Field and Grant Park, as well as a permit to camp out at Lincoln Park. Of course Mayor Daley wanted to stop the protests at all cost so he only granted the permit for Grant Park, using the excuse that there had been too many riots and assassinations in the past year to grant permission to such a large crowd. In Mayor Daley’s defense there had been riots and protests all over the country in the previous few years and they had hit Chicago particularly hard. Despite the permit denial thousands of protesters stormed Lincoln Park and set up camp. At first Daley allowed them to stay but many of the protest leaders expected eventual resistance from law enforcement and decided to set up self-defense classes that taught karate and snake dancing. As Black Panther leader Bobby Seale said, “We’re not here to be sitting around a jive table vacillating and bull-jiving ourselves.” Basically that they were not going to sit around and be pushed over by the police. Additional classes held by protesters in the park involved subjects like joint rolling and draft dodging, many just happy to have an audience of like minded individuals to share with.
Protesters in Lincoln Park Chicago. Courtesy of NWI Times.
While this was going on delegates for the convention began to arrive and were greeted by a scene resembling a city preparing for a siege. National Guardsmen and Police met the delegates planes and escorted them to their hotel, where they were met by more heavily armed police guarding the building. Jeeps covered in barbed wire and filled with armed Guardsmen, some with machine guns, were seen driving around the city to spots where they thought trouble might breakout. The convention center itself was set up like a fortress with the doors having been bulletproofed, steel fencing around the hall topped with barbed wire, barricades erected, and armed National Guard and police patrolling the surrounding area. Walter Cronkite remarked on air that, “The Democratic Convention is about to begin in a police state. There just doesn't seem to be any other way to say it.” Many of those in the press expected this however and it was not uncommon to see them toting their own riot gear in case the situation turned for the worse. Fortunately the delegates' arrival went smoothly and the week prior to the convention saw little actual violence.
Helmeted police waiting to greet the democratic delegates. Courtesy of Smithsonian Magazine.
Commotion at the Park
The protesters were right to worry about being removed from Lincoln Park as the day before the convention was set to begin Mayor Daley ordered police to move in, using the city’s 11 P.M. park curfew as an excuse to forcibly remove them. When police arrived the mood of the protesters was jovial as they were holding yoga classes, playing live music, dancing, and generally having a good time. However their mood began to dim as more and more officers showed up. A short relay of radio messages between officers before they began clearing the park does best to describe how police felt about the activists:
Officer One: “We’ve got an injured hippie.”
Dispatch: “That’s no emergency.”
Officer Two: “Kick the f--ker!”
Officer Three: “Knock his teeth out.”
Around 11 P.M. on Sunday, August 25 roughly 2,000 policemen wearing riot gear, gas masks, and helmets assembled just outside of the park, and a few began launching tear gas into the crowd. Bill Jaconetti was new to the force and had just returned from a deployment in Korea when he was sent to help clear out the protesters. He recalls what happened just before they started, “The first deputy said, 'Clear the streets.' After about, I don't know, maybe five or six warnings, and then the final warning, he said, 'If you don't move out of the street, my officers are gonna clear the street.' And that's what we had to do on that night.”
Police arrest and beat protesters. Courtesy of Getty Images.
The protesters began to scatter in all directions as the gas grew thicker and police moved in, many tripping over each other and falling due to the blinding effects of the gas. Police began mercilessly hitting people with clubs, oftentimes not stopping even when someone had dropped to the ground. Eyewitnesses reported that police used no restraint and there was much unnecessary bloodshed, some reporters even claiming that officers removed their badges, name plates, and unit patches so they would be unidentifiable in any photographs taken.
A bloody protester being treated after being hit by police. Courtesy of CBS News.
After the fact police leadership went on to defend the actions taken by saying that the protesters should not have broken curfew to start with and that many resisted arrest. Jaconetti also defended his fellow officers by recalling a scene that had happened shortly after the gas was launched, “The problem wasn't the regular people; the problem was the agitators, and there were a lot of them. My partner next to me, he caught a house brick in the chest. They had to take him to the hospital.” Marily Katz, who was a part of activist leadership, rebuked such defenses in an interview by saying that no one came to the protest for violence and that there was no reason for the police to beat them. When asked if she had seen anyone throw anything at officers she said “Yes” and that if she “had had something, I would have thrown it back, too, because we had done nothing.”
Protester throwing a tier gas canister back at police. Courtesy of the Chicago Tribune.
At the time however the police had powerful backers. Not only were they protected by city leadership, who sent them in the first place, but they also had powerful legal protection. Many lawyers and judges did not agree with the sentiments of the anti-war activists and were willing to overlook actions taken by officers, even going so far as to shift blame onto the protesters themselves. Thomas Foran, a Chicago lawyer who would later go on to prosecute several activist leaders, said that the protesters were “spoiled brats who thought that they knew better than everybody…they were being encouraged to do things they shouldn’t do by these sophisticated guys whose idea was to shame the U.S. government.”
Protester holding a sign that reads “Welcome to Chicago” with barbed wire painted over the words. Courtesy of Chicago Sun-Times.
Start of the Convention
The 1968 Democratic National Convention began on Monday, August 6 with delegates from several states entering the International Amphitheater. Live cameras from multiple news agencies covered the entire convention floor but none showed the protests outside. Many states had multiple groups of delegates pining for seats at the convention; there were groups made up of labor union leaders, far-left liberals, conservative democrats from the deep South, and newer groups of predominantly black delegates. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 had now allowed blacks to vote in great numbers, further splitting the party due to its controversial history with the black community. These different groups hashed it out on the convention floor and multiple uproars occurred, at one point a diverse group made up of blacks and latinos from Texas was denied from participating, causing a huge rift in the party. Yelling, cursing, and the occasional fight could be seen as members were intensely split between candidates.
A view inside of the convention. Courtesy of Smithsonian Magazine.
The only man who even had a chance of uniting the party was Senator McCarthy but he was an odd fellow being described as strangely uncompetitive, lacking common sense, and “seemed at times to have disdain for the people who supported him.” On top of this the political bosses of the party still had their minds set on Humphrey and were unlikely to change. Lines were soon drawn between the anti-war delegates and Vice President Humphrey’s, and indirectly President Johnsons, hawkish supporters. Shouting matches ensued and red-faced delegates argued until three in the morning. On Tuesday there was to be a prime-time debate about the Vietnam War but it was postponed until after midnight when most television viewers would be asleep. Those against the war were furious and let their anger be known so vigorously that Mayor Daley had to adjourn the convention for the rest of the night.
Many people did support Mayor Daley and the police. Courtesy of NBC.
Escalating Violence
The same evening that the convention ended early, protesters began to surround the Hilton Hotel where the delegates and candidates were staying. Police tried to maintain control but the situation was growing tenser by the hour, so Mayor Daley decided to call up the National Guard for help. As the National Guard was mobilizing and police continued to hold the line, protest leader Tom Hayden rallied the crowd by announcing, “Tomorrow is the day that this operation has been pointing for some time. We are going to gather here. We are going to make our way to the Amphitheatre by any means necessary.” No notable violence occurred that night but the atmosphere and quotes from activist leaders did not sit well with police or city officials.
National Guardsmen facing protesters. Courtesy of History.com.
The next day, Wednesday, August 28, the televised Vietnam War debate took place in order to see if the Democrat Party would adopt a peace plank or if they would continue to support the war. At roughly the same time MOBE and other protest groups convened at the bandshell in Grant Park to hold their highly anticipated anti-war rally. Roughly 15,000 protesters showed up with most coming from Chicago itself, though this was far less than leaders had anticipated. Despite the disappointing turnout they went ahead with the rally. They held speeches where some made inflammatory remarks, even calling for revolution, while most just wanted an end to the conflict in Vietnam. Hundreds of police and National Guardsmen surrounded the protesters with orders to prevent them from reaching the amphitheater.
A group of police face off against a bloodied protester. Courtesy of Getty Images.
However no altercations occurred until around 3:30 in the afternoon when a teenager climbed a flagpole near the bandshell and lowered the American flag that was flying there. Police quickly moved in to arrest him but several other protesters came to the teens aid, hurling rocks, food, bags of urine, and any other objects they could find at the officers. The police retreated but when the protesters, along with an undercover officer, raised a red piece of cloth in place of the American Flag, to represent the Viet Cong, roughly 30 officers rushed in and began bashing them with billy clubs, knocking some unconscious. Hoping to stop any further violence, protest leader Davis informed police that they had a legal permit to assemble in the park and requested that the officers leave. This just caused them to turn on Davis and knock him unconscious too. The officers then moved into the crowd and began indiscriminately beating protesters with batons and fists.
Police move in and beat demonstrators. Courtesy of Dennis Brack/UT Austin Briscoe Center.
Despite the police’s actions several activist leaders continued to call for nonviolent protest. Tom Hayden however worried that there would be mass arrests and a further escalation in violence, he urged protesters to disperse to the streets in small groups and try to make their way back to the Hilton Hotel. Some also attempted to march to the convention to protest but the police deemed this march illegal and intervened to ensure they did not make it there. One group of marchers was even stopped by a National Guardsmen who was wielding two tripod-mounted .30 caliber machine guns.
While this went on at the park, the convention itself also became much more lively. The peace plank to end the Vietnam War had been defeated which enraged the anti-war delegates and caused the floor to devolve into pandemonium. One delegate who had pushed for peace remarked, “We were desolate. All of the work that we had done, all of the effort we had made had, it seemed to us, come to naught…our hearts were broken.” This decision further angered the protesters outside and by late evening thousands of them were in a standoff with thousands of police at the Hilton Hotel.
A protester taunts National Guardsmen.
Fever Pitch
No one is sure what triggered the chaos, but police began to clear out the crowd by any means necessary. They beat protesters, and innocent bystanders, with clubs and saps and deployed so much tear gas that Humphrey, who was watching from the 25th floor of the hotel, began to feel the effects of it. It was a wholesale beatdown with police pummeling men and women, blacks and whites alike. Even reporters with their visible press passes were not safe from the blunt trauma. One woman was being hit by multiple officers when she looked up and saw that they had all removed their badges. Police also confiscated cameras, going out of their way to destroy them and any footage that someone may have. In one instance an officer grabbed a woman’s camera and shoved her over the railing of a ledge, she fell roughly a story and landed on her head. CBS sound engineer Ted Turner watched from his fifth floor window saying, “Now they're moving in, the cops are moving and they are really belting these characters. They're grabbing them, sticks are flailing. People are laying on the ground. I can see them, colored people. Cops are just belting them; cops are just laying it in. There's piles of bodies on the street. There's no question about it. You can hear the screams, and there's a guy they're just dragging along the street and they don't care. I don't think ... I don't know if he's alive or dead. Holy Jesus, look at him. Five of them are belting him, really, oh, this man will never get up."
An injured reporter interviews a bloody demonstrator, pictures of police arresting protesters. Courtesy of ABC7 Chicago, The New York Times, and The Washington Post respectively.
Americans at home switched between channels as they watched police brutally batter bloodied protesters and Humphrey’s nomination at the convention. Though Daley and other officials tried to suppress information of the riots some delegates went ahead and spoke out about them and how the police were handling it. Delegate Abraham Ribicoff, who nominated McGovern, glared at Daley as he declared, “With George McGovern as president of the United States, we wouldn’t have to have Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago.” Daley could be seen shouting obscenities at him as he left the stage. As much as the Democratic leadership wanted to act like everything inside the convention was under control, it was not. Security was seen shaking down reporters with Dan Rather being punched in the stomach while trying to question a delegate and Mike Wallace being wrestled to the floor. Rather was also verbally abused by Daley when questioning him about the police brutality that was happening outside. The Mayor shouted several obscenities at him and when pressed further on the issue he snapped by saying that it was, “Totally propaganda by you and your station and a lot of Eastern interests. You never wanted this convention in Chicago.”
Dan Rather the moment he was punched during the convention. Courtesy of Getty Images.
That night after bitter contention, yelling, cursing, fights, and general chaos Humphrey officially won the nomination by over a thousand votes. The mood within the convention turned somber as any illusion of solidarity in the Democratic Party had been utterly shattered. Many of the peace delegates joined the protesters outside and held a candlelight vigil. The next day protesters and hundreds of the anti-war delegates again attempted to make their way to the amphitheater but were quickly dispersed with tear gas.
On the night of the final day of the convention a video tribute to Senator Robert Kennedy was shown. Kennedy supporters began singing “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and went on for over 20 minutes. Other delegates finally had enough and began booing them, eventually resulting in fistfights between the different factions. Order was eventually restored and on August 29 at midnight the controversial, contentious, and bloody 1968 Democratic National Convention officially came to a close.
Eddie Anderson attempting to burn his delegate card in protest on the convention floor. Courtesy of the Washington Post.
Aftermath
There were over 650 protesters arrested with the total number injured unknown, though over 100 were treated at hospitals within the area. 192 policemen were injured, 49 of which required medical attention. Davis, Dellinger, Hayden, Seale and four other protest organizers were arrested and charged with conspiracy to start a riot and crossing state lines to start a riot. They quickly became known as the Chicago Eight and put on trial together. Early in the trial Seale complained that he was denied his right to choose his own lawyer, after which the judge found him in contempt and ordered that he appear before the jury bound, gagged, and chained to his chair. Seale was then removed from the case and ordered to stand trial separately, turning the defendants into the Chicago Seven.
Six of the seven members of the Chicago Seven. Courtesy of Citizen Truth.
Seale was sentenced to four years for contempt of court but this conviction was later overturned. After a long, oftentimes ridiculous, trial the Chicago Seven were found not guilty of conspiracy, but five were found guilty of inciting a riot. These convictions were also later overturned.
Bobby Seale. Courtesy of Praire View A&M University.
Politically the convention did nothing but hurt the Democrat Party and the protests did nothing to stop the war. If anything the contention between the two sides of the party paved the way for Republican candidate Richard Nixon to win the Presidential Election. Nixon believed strongly in law and order and many wanted him in the White House instead of one of the perceived hotheaded democrats. After the whole affair was over the party took a long hard look at itself and how they could build it back up and regain the public's trust. They decided to retire the system of political bosses that held so many delegates and instead wanted the people to have more power in deciding the candidate.
After the election there was a commision set up to investigate the riots. They came to the conclusion that it was a “police riot” and blamed law enforcement for most of the violence, though many officers and public officials rebuked these claims. Oddly enough many protesters who were there would later go on to say that they did not blame the individual officers but put much of the blame on Mayor Daley and other city leaders who fed the police information about violent protesters and ordered them to protect the city at all costs. Out of the entire ordeal perhaps the most perplexing part was how some police came to view the riots with pride and still today use it as a rallying cry. Police performing crowd control at the 1996 Democratic National Convention were even seen wearing shirts that said “WE KICKED YOUR FATHER’S A-- IN 1968 . . . WAIT ‘TILL YOU SEE WHAT WE DO TO YOU!”
One of the shirts worn by police at the 1996 DNC. Courtesy of Ethan Persoff.
Despite what “nostalgia” some may feel for the 1968 Democratic National Convention most view it in a poor light and it is generally seen as an example of what not to do. Both the Democrat Party and law enforcement have taken steps to prevent something like this from happening again.
Personal Thoughts
This was something I decided to write about at the last minute and really did not know hardly anything about. The more I researched it the crazier it just kept getting, there were times I would just sit back and chuckle at how absurd things became. I really see a right side in any of these, everyone was just terrible. The only positive thing I can really say is that it seems they showed some restraint with the National Guard and weren’t stabbing people with bayonets. That’s seriously the only positive I can think of. It was a year of tragedy, especially for the Democratic Party, and though it wasn’t the end of it the convention I would say was the climax of it all.
Sources
Cover Photo Courtesy of Magnum Photos
https://www.history.com/topics/1960s/1968-democratic-convention
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/remembering-1968-chicagos-bloody-democratic-convention/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/08/24/a-party-that-had-lost-its-mind-in-1968-democrats-held-one-of-historys-most-disastrous-conventions/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1968-democratic-convention-931079/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45226132
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93898277
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv0rI-5ycBU
Book, Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Force by Radley Balko
