DNC Chicago, 1968

Posted August 26, 2008, 7:06 am in Politics


1968 already had been a tumultuous year for the United States, with the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. in April and Senator Robert F. Kennedy in June during his campaign for the Democratic nomination, and widespread protests against the Vietnam War.

War protesters gathered in Chicago to send a message to candidate Hubert Humphrey and the Democratic party. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley posted 12,000 police officers on the streets, and called in the Illinois National Guard. Television cameras recorded a bloody riot as police arrested over 500 people.

Eight protest organizers were arrested including Yippies and SDS leaders Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Tom Hayden, and Black Panther Bobby Seale. Seale was severed from the case and sentenced to 4 years in prison for contempt after calling the judge a "fascist dog," a "pig," and a "racist.”  The group then became known as the Chicago Seven.



The trial lasted for months, with many celebrated figures from the American counterculture called to testify (including folk singers Phil Ochs, Judy Collins and Arlo Guthrie, writer Norman Mailer, LSD advocate Timothy Leary and Reverend Jesse Jackson).

All seven defendants were found not guilty of conspiracy.  Five were convicted with crossing state lines with the intent to incite a riot and sentenced to five years in prison. At the sentencing, Abbie Hoffman suggested the judge try LSD, offering to set him up with a dealer.

All of the convictions were reversed by a U.S. Court of Appeals and the Justice Department decided not to retry the case.

Chicago 7, written by Aaron Sorkin, produced by Steven Speilberg, directed by Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy and Ultimatum), and starring Sacha Baron Cohen as Abbie Hoffman and Will Smith as Bobby Seale begins filming early next year.

As for the 1968 election,  Richard Nixon and running mate Spiro T. Agnew defeated Hubert H. Humphrey and Edmund S. Muskie. A third party ticket headed by George C. Wallace, the former governor of Alabama, complicated the election. Nixon won with 301 electoral votes to Humphrey’s 191 and Wallace’s 46.




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