Whatever their views on the intervention in Indochina, a majority seemed to believe that the young, allegedly unpatriotic troublemakers had it coming. The video, replayed over the next few days, shocked and angered millions who opposed the war.īut pollsters soon found that twice as many Americans sided with the police as sided with the protesters. Viewers saw police brutally attacking men and women with mace and clubs. It was shown live on TV for a full 17 minutes. The day I was released, a confrontation between helmeted police and nonviolent demonstrators erupted in front of the Hilton hotel in downtown Chicago. But I don’t think any of us expected that the conflict - not just over the war, but over two visions for American society - would still be raging, half a century later. Many of us at the time felt we had a duty to oppose the war, and we certainly felt the historical weight of the moment. I joined hundreds of others in jail that night. This was, of course, the Democratic National Convention, which was about to nominate as its presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey, the vice president, who had staunchly supported the decision to send half a million troops to pursue a deeply immoral and doomed mission in Vietnam. 26, 1968, I was arrested on a street corner in Chicago for a dubious crime: protesting a political event.
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