Danver Steven L. (Edited). Revolts, Protests, Demonstrations, and Rebellions in American History: An Encyclopedia (ENG)
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Chicago Seven
The C hicago Seven originally consisted of eight defendants indicted for con-
spiracy to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
The original eight defenda nts included Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Del-
linger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, Lee Weiner, and Bobby Seale.
Judge Julius Hoffman severed Black Panther leader Seale from the case, and the
courtroom drama was termed the trial of the Chicago Seven by the media.
To spotlight their opposition to the Vietnam War, the National Mobilization to
End the War i n Vietnam (Mobe) and the Youth International Party (Yippies)
planned demonstrations to coincide with the Chicago Democratic National
Convention in August 1968. The Mobe, led by Tom Hayden and Rennie Davis,
focused upon organizing antiwar demonstrations, while Yippie founders Abbie
Hoffman and Jerry Rubin called for a festival of youth, music, a nd theater that
would mock traditional politics by nominating a pig, Pigasus, for president.
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley was appalled by the antics of the protesters. City
officials refused permission for the demonstrators to sleep in city parks, announc-
ing that an 11:00 p.m. curfew would be enforced. National Guard troops were
requested by Daley to support Chicago’s 12,000 police.
On the evening of August 25, confrontatio ns between demonstrators an d
Chicago police began, continuing through August 29 with hundreds arr ested and
injured in the melee. On March 20, 1969, a Chicago grand jury indicted eight
defendants for crossing state lines to incite a riot. The trial commenced in the
courtroom of Judge Hoffman on September 24, 1969. The prosecution was headed
by District Attorney Thomas Foran and his assistant Richard Schultz, while
attorneys William Kunstler and Leonar d Weinglass represented the defense.
Bobby Seale pro tested that his counsel of choice, Charles Garry was unavailable
due to health issues and requested a postponement of the trial. Judge Hoffman
denied Seale’s request, and when the Black Panther leader angrily denounced the
ruling, Hoffman ordered the black defendant bound and gagged. Eventually, the
judge severed Seale from the case and sentenced him to four years in prison for
contempt.
The prosecution relied upon informants to support their conspiracy case, while
the defense attempted to ridicule the system and Judge Hoffman by such antics as
blowing kisses to the jury and dressing in judicial robes. A frustrated Judge Hoff-
man sentenced the defendants and their attorneys to lengthy prison terms for 159
acts of criminal contempt. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals later reversed
all these contempt convictions and censured Judge Hoffman.
1019
The jury acquitted al l defendants on the conspiracy charge, but Hayden, Hoff-
man, Rubin, Del linger, and Davis were convicted of crossing state lines to incite
a riot. Each of the convicted men was fined $5,000 and sent enced to a five-year
prison term. These convictio ns, however, were r eversed by the Seventh Circuit
Court of Appeals on November 21, 1972, due to the Appeal Court’s findings that
the decisions of Judge Hoffman were prejudicial and that the FBI resorted to ille-
gal actions such as bugging the offices of defense attorneys. The trial of t he
Chicago Seven became a media circus highlighting the cultural wars of the
1960s, but the overturning of the convictions and contempt citations also demon-
strated a sense of justice within the American legal system.
—Ron Briley
Further Reading
Condon, Frank, Ron Sossi, and Tom Hayden. Voices of the Chicago Eight: A Generation
on Trial. San Francisco: City Lights Publishers, 2008.
Schulz, John. The Chicag o Conspiracy Trial. New York: Da Capo, 1993.
Weiner, Jon, Tom Hayden, and Jules Feiffer. Conspiracy in the Streets: The Extraordinary
Trial of the Chicago Eight. New York: New Press, 2006.
1020 Chicago Riots (1968)
Demonstrators protest the trial of the Chicago Seven (also known as the Chicago Eight).
The Chicago Seven, antiwar activists arrested for protests during the Democratic National
Convention held in Chicago in 1968, drew attention to their cause during a lengthy and often
bizarre trial. (Library of Congress)
Daley, Richard J. (1902–1976)
Richard Joseph Daley served as the Democ ratic Party mayor of Chic ago for
21 years. During the 1968 Democratic national convention in Chicago, Daley sup-
ported the presidential nomination of Vice President Hubert Humphrey, but he was
criticized for encouraging a violent police response to the demonstrations that
marred the convention, contributing to Humphrey’s narrow political defeat.
Daley was born in a wor king-class neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side on
May 15, 1902. His father was a steel worker and his mother a devout Catholic,
who raised her son in the faith. Daley attended Catholic schools and graduate d
from DePaul Law School in 1934. Two years later, Daley was elected to the
Illinois state senate, where he served 10 years.
In 1 946, Daley suffered his only electoral defeat when he failed to gain the
office of Cook County sheriff. His political career was back on track in 1950 with
his election as clerk of Cook County. Daley was poised for a mayoral candidacy
after attaining election as chairman of the Cook County Democratic Central Com-
mittee in 1953. Two years later, the voters of Chicago selected Daley for mayor—a
position he maintained until his death in 1976.
As mayor, Daley garnered considerable labor support, settling several disputes
and assuring decent w ages for municipal employees. The mayor also presided
over urban renewal as well as expansion of the city’s mass transit and O’Hare
Airport. The well-organized Daley political machine provided stability for the
city’s white ethnics, but the mayor also maintained black political support through
the use of patronage. Daley was crediting with providing an economic foundation
for Chicago, which prevented the city from suffering the urban blight that charac-
terized other Midwestern industrial cities during the 1950s and 1960s.
The stability of the Daley regime, however, was challenged during the late
1960s. In 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. carried the civil rights movement into the
North, but the Chicago open housing agreement negotiated by King was not
enforced by the Daley administration. Following King’s assassination in
April 1968, Dal ey provoked controversy by ordering Chicago police to “shoot to
kill” any a rsonists. In August of that same year, Daley was censured by many
Democrats for his handling of the protests surrounding the party’s national con-
vention. In response to thousands of protesters gathering i n Chicago, Daley
announced that the city would enforce an 11:00 p.m. curfew for the city’s pa rks
and requested National Guard troops to support the city’s police force. Senator
Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut condemned the mayor for employing “Gestapo
tactics on the streets of Chicago.” A federal commission chaired by attorney
Chicago Riots (1968) 1021
Daniel Walker later described the violence on the streets of Chicago as “a police
riot.” Daley, however, posed as the champion of law and order, winning reelection.
Although columnist Mike Royko published a 1971 best-seller, Boss, charging
Daley with corruption, and some of the mayor’s associates were indicted and
imprisoned, Daley was never personally accused of dishonesty. He suffered a
stroke in 1974, but the mayor remained in office until his death two years later.
Daley was subject to considerable criticism in 1968 for his handling of race rela-
tions and the Democratic national convention, yet at a 2005 Chicago Historical
Society meeting commemorating Daley 50 years after he was first elected mayor,
he was praised as one of the preeminent mayors o f 20th-century America. Daley
died on December 20, 1976.
—Ron Briley
Further Reading
Biles, Roger. Richard J. Daley: Politics, Race, and the Government of Chicago. DeKalb:
Northern Illinois University Press, 1995.
Cohen, Adam, and Elizabeth Taylor. American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley. Boston:
Little, Brown, 2000.
Royko, Mike. Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago. New York: Dutton, 1971.
Democratic National Convention (1968)
The Democratic National Convention convened in Chicago from August 25 to 29,
1968, amid cultural and antiwar protests, to select a candidate to replace President
Lyndon Johnson. The violence that er upted at the convention contributed to
Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey’s narrow defeat by Republican Richard
Nixon in the fall general election.
During the early months of 1968, President Johnson was f acing increasing
opposition within his own party to the war in Vietnam. Despite assurances that
the war was being won by American and South Vietnamese forces, North Viet-
namese and Vietcong soldiers during the Tet Offensive in February 1968 were able
to gain a foothold in South Vietnamese urban centers before being r epulsed by
American troops in heavy fighting. President Johnson’s approval rating fell below
35 percent, and opposition to the war intensified.
When New York senator Robert F. Kennedy, a critic of Johnson’s Vietnam pol-
icies, declined to challenge Johnson in the primaries, Senator Eugene McCarthy of
Minnesota entered the Democratic primaries as an antiwar candidate. Boosted by
thousands of young volunteers, McCarthy shocked Johnson on March 12 in the
1022 Chicago Riots (1968)
New Hampshire primary, winning 42 percent of the vote to the president’s 49 per-
cent. His strong New Hampshire showing provided legitimacy for McCarthy’s
candidacy. Four days later, however, Robert Kennedy also entered the presidential
campaign. McCarthy’s supporters labeled the New York senato r an opportunist,
and the two antiwar senators waged a bitter campaign throughout the Democratic
primaries.
In response to the McCarthy and Kennedy challenges, President Johnson
announced on March 31 that he would not seek reelection. Following Johnson’s
withdrawal, Vice President Hubert Humphrey entered the race but did not contest
the primaries, focusing upon gaining delegates from non-primary states and
Democratic Party leaders.
In a fierce primary struggled marred by the assassination of Martin Luther King
Jr. and racial urban unrest in April, the Kennedy and McCarthy campaigns culmi-
nated in the June 4 California contest won narrowly by the New York senator. Ken-
nedy, however, was assassinated after his California victory speech, and the antiwar
movement within the Democratic Party was in disarray. McCarthy continued with
his campaign, and Senator George McGovern of South Dakota attempted to rally
disaffected Kennedy delegates. Most mainstream delegates to the Chicago conven-
tion, however, were committed to the nomination of Vice President Humphrey.
As the protests and violence on the streets of Chicago near the convention drew
increasing media attention, the rancor spilled over into the convention floor. Sena-
tor Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut, delivering a nominating speech for Senator
McGovern, accused Chicago Mayor Richard Daley of e mploying “Gestapo tac -
tics,” and Daley seemingly replied with an ethnic slur. Nevertheless, the delegates
did nominate Humphrey, with Senator Edmund Muskie of Ma ine as his running
mate, to face Republican nominee Richard Nixon in the 1968 general election.
Although Humphrey did narrow the gap with Nixon in the weeks preceding the
election, he never seemed to fully recover from the images of violence and chaos
surrounding th e D emocratic Convention. Humphrey gained 191 electoral votes
to Nixon’s 301, while former Alabama governor George Wallace, running on the
American Independent Party ticket, carried five states with 46 electoral votes.
The violence outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago inad-
vertently played an important role in electing Nixon, with his law-and-order plat-
form, to the presidency.
—Ron Briley
Further Reading
Farber, David. Chicago ’68. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
Gould, Lewis L. 1968: The Election that Changed America. New York: Ivan R. Dee, 1993.
White, Theodore H. The Making of the President, 1968. New York: Antheneum, 1969.
Chicago Riots (1968) 1023
Hayden, Tom (1939–)
Born on December 11, 1939, Tom Hayden is a political activist noted for his
opposition to the Vietnam War. As an organizer for the National M obilization
Committee to End the War in Vietnam, he was indicted as a member of
the Chicago Seven and accused of inciting a riot at the 1968 Democratic National
Convention in Chicago. His conviction was overturned on appeal, and Hayden
resumed his career as an activist, writer, and progressive politician.
Hayden wa s born i n Detroit, Michigan, a nd as a student a t the University of
Michigan, he served as editor of the Michigan Daily. Disenchanted with the con-
servatism of the National Student Associ ation, Hayden helped establish a more
activist student organization, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). H ayden
served as presi dent of SDS from 1962 to 1963, and at a United Auto Workers
retreat, he authored the SDS manifesto, The Port Huron Statement. Denouncing
racism, militarism, and poverty within t he United States, Hayden’s document
called for participatory democracy to heal the nation’s ills.
From 19 64 to 1968, H ayde n worked with impoverished residents of Newark,
New Jersey, as an organizer f or the Newark Community Union Project. I n 1967,
Newark suffered racial unrest in which 26 people d ied, and whit e authorities
attempted to blame “outside agitators” such as Hayden for the violence. In
response to these accusations, Hayden penned Rebellion in Newark: Official
Violence and Ghetto Response (1978).
Hayden was also noted for his opposition to the Vietnam War. In 1965 and
1967, he made trips to North Vietnam as a peace activist, but Hayden was
denounced as a traitor by the war’s supporters. After returning from his second trip
to Hanoi, Hayden worked with the National Mobilization Committee to End th e
War in Vietna m, recruiti ng protesters for the 1968 Democratic National Conven-
tion in Chicago. Hayden believes that Chicago mayor Richard Daley was “hood-
winked ” by the FBI into believing thousands of Yippies were going to engage in
public sexual acts and place drugs in the city’s water supply. On the evening of
August 28, when Hubert Humphrey was to accept the Democratic presidential
nomination, violence intensified after a teenager attempted to lower the American
flag at Grant Park and police began to brutally beat protesters. Wearing a fake
beard to m ove free ly around the city, Hayde n ended up skirmishing with police
in the Hilton Hotel’s Haymarket Lounge.
Indicted on conspiracy charges for his role in inciting violence at the conven-
tion, Hayden preferred a trial strategy that would allow the defendants to articulate
their political views on issues such as the Vietnam War. Instead, the trial
of the Chicago Seven was characterized by the guerrilla theater tactics of Abbie
1024 Chicago Riots (1968)
Hoffman. Hayden and four other defendants were convicted of crossing state lines
to incite a riot and sentenced to five years in prison along with contempt charges.
The convictions, however, were reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sev-
enth Circuit.
Following the trial of the Chicago Seven, Hayden remained in the public eye,
accompanying actress Jane Fonda on a controversial 1972 journey to North Viet-
nam. The next year Hayden married Fonda, and the couple had one child befo re
divorcing in 1990.
Taking up residence in California in the late 1970s, Hayden forged a career as a
progressive activist and politician. Hayden and Fonda formed the Campaign for
Economic Democracy, promoting solar energy, environmental initiatives, and anti-
poverty measures on the state level. In 1982, Hayden was elected to the California
state assembly, serving for 10 years before winning election to the California state
senate in 1992. After eight years in the senate and failure to win statewide contests
for governor an d the U.S. Senate, Hayden now teache s at Occid enta l and Pitze r
Colleges, writes, and promotes progressive political ca uses. Forty years after the
Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968, Hayden concluded that the violence in
the streets was avoidable. According to Hayden, “It takes two for a riot to occur.
And if it wasn’t for the FBI advisers, Chicago ’68 would not have happened.”
—Ron Briley
Further Reading
Condon, Frank, Ron Sossi, and Tom Hayden. Voice s of the Chicago Eight: A Generation
on Trial. San Francisco: City Lights Publishers, 2008.
Hayden, Tom. Rebellion in Newark: Official Violence and Ghetto Response.NewYork:
Random House, 1967.
Hayden, Tom. Reunion: A Memoir. New York: Random House, 1988.
Hayden, Tom. Writings for a Democratic Society: The Tom Hayden Reader.San
Francisco: City Lights Publishers, 2008.
Lynd, Staughton, and Tom Hayden. The Other Side. New York: New America n Library,
1967.
Hoffman, Abbie (1936–1989)
Born on November 30, 1936, Abbott Howard “Abbie” Hoffman was a 1960s
political and cultural activist indicted for conspiracy to incite a riot during the
1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. During the conspiracy trial of
the Chicago Seven, Hoffman earned the ire of Judge Julius Hoffman (no relation)
Chicago Riots (1968) 1025
for mocking the proc eedings. Hoffman’s conviction and contempt-of-co urt c ita-
tions were overturned on appeal, and he continued to be a thorn in the side of the
political establishment during the 1970s and 1980s.
Hoffman was born to Russian Jewish immigrants in Worcester, Massachusetts.
His father was the owner of a medical su pply company, and his son worked as a
salesman for the business. Although he encountered some disciplinary problems
as a high school student, Hoffman was accepted at Brandeis University, from
which he graduated with a psychology degree in 1959. After a year of graduate
study at th e U niversity of California, Berkeley, Hoffman worked as a staff psy-
chologist at the Worcester State Hospital and served as a pharmaceutical drug
salesman. By the mid-1960s, Hoffman was becoming politically active. He organ-
ized the first demonstration in Worcester against the Vietnam War, and he helped
establish retail outlets for craft products from the Mississippi Poor Peopl e’s
Corporation.
Spending more of his time as a political activist, Hoffman was fired from his
pharmaceutical position and moved to New York City, where he hoped to promote
a union between cultural youth rebels and New Left political activists. To imple-
ment his plan, Hoffman employed political theater, seeking media attention for
his antics. In Augu st 1967, for example, Hoffman wanted to highlight the greed
at the heart of capitalism. While standing on the visitors’ gallery of the New York
Stock Exchange, the rebel tossed dollar bills on the floor of the stock exchange and
induced stockbrokers to abandon their responsibilities and scamper after the
money. Hoffman also led an antiwar protest late that fall at the Pentagon in which
he urged demonstrators to surround the building, exorcise its war demons, and end
the Vietnam War through songs and chants.
In 1968, Hoffman joined with fellow activist Jerry Rubin to form the Youth
International Party or Yippies. Hoffman planned a “Festival of Life” for the
Chicago Democratic National Convention, which would contrast the playful values
of the counterculture with the militaristic designs of the Johnson admini stration.
Vowing to make the De mocratic Convention a “polit ical circus,” Hoffman
announced plans for public love-ins and lacing the Chicago water supply with
LSD. Chicago mayor Richard Daley responded to Hoffman’s theatrics by refusing
to allow the Yippies to hold their “Festival of Life” in Lincoln Park and proclaim-
ing an 11:00 p.m. curfew for city parks. Police efforts to disperse the protesters led
to violence on the streets of Chicago, which was later declared a “police riot” by
the Walker Commission formed to investigate the origins of the disturbances.
In March 1969, Hoffman and seven other defendants were indicted for inciting
riots at the convention. While some defendants preferred a more serious defense,
Hoffman used the trial for revolutionary theater, poking fun at the judge and pro-
ceedings. Hoffman performed handstands in court and mocked the pr ocess by
1026 Chicago Riots (1968)
appearing in judicial robes and American flag shirts. Hoffman was found guilty of
crossing state lines to incite a riot and was sentenced to five years in prison. Judge
Julius Hoffman sentenced him to an additional eight months for contempt of court.
The convictions were overturned on appeal.
The Chicago conspir acy tri al made Hoffman a n ational figure who was a
sought-after speaker on college campuses. He continued to be a cu ltural rebel
and protested the Vietnam War, but he urged demonstrators to take a more moder-
ate stance at the 1972 Democratic Convention due to the antiwar polices of nomi-
nee George McGovern. Arrested for selling cocaine to an undercover policeman in
the summer of 1973, Hoffman went underground rather than face incarceration.
Using the pseudonym Barry Freed, Hoffman settled in the Thousand Islands of
New York, where he became a prom inent environme ntal ist. Fearing that his true
identity would be revealed, Hoffman surrendered to authorities in September 1980.
After serving less than a year of jail time, Hoffman resumed his career as a politi-
cal activist. He suffered from bipolar disorder, and his death on April 12, 1989, at
his home in Solebury Township, Pennsylvania, was ruled a suicide.
—Ron Briley
Further Reading
Hoffman, Abbie. The Autobiography of Abbie Hoffman. New York: Four Walls Eight Win-
dows, 2000.
Hoffman, Abbie. Revolution for the Hell of It. New York: Pocket Books, 1970.
Jezer, Marty. Abbie Hoffman: American Rebel. New Bru nswick, NJ: Rutgers University
Press, 1992.
Raskin, Jonah. For the Hell of It: The Life and Times of Abbie Hoffman. Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1996.
National Mobilization Committee
to End the War in Vietnam (Mobe)
The National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (Mobe) was an
antiwar organizat ion that called for massive demonstrations at the 1968 Chicago
Democratic National Convention to protest the Vietnam policies of President
Lyndon Johnson. Although the Mobe’s appeal attracted approximately 10,000 pro-
testers, far below the anticipated number of participants, the efforts of Chicago
police to impose curfews in city parks led to violence in the streets and the indict-
ment of Mobe leaders David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, and Rennie Davis for
inciting a riot.
Chicago Riots (1968) 1027