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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted
from the Sept. 5, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
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[The writer was a leader of the Workers World Party group at the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests.]
It was 1968--a year of Black rebellions, assassinations, anti-war resistance, strikes and the last Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Martin Luther King's April 4 assassination was followed by rebellions in 100 Black communities of urban America.
In June Sen. Robert Kennedy was also assassinated. Kennedy had run for president in Democratic Party primaries.
As the convention date approached, a militant strike of Chicago transit workers was also in progress.
It was a period of activism and confrontation, from France to Mexico to the streets of the United States. Rebellion had raised its head even in the camps and stockades of the U.S. military in Vietnam.
By the time the Democratic Convention was held in late August, the National Guard and the Chicago police were on alert to stop any disruption of the convention. U.S. troops from Fort Hood were in place to step in should the protests spill over into Chicago's Black community.
The authorities, from the Johnson administration on down, had made elaborate plans to sabotage any protests. Government violence-baiting flooded the movement, warning of a bloodbath in Chicago. Many students canceled plans to protest or even turned back after starting out.
Some 10,000 still came out. Many had come to back Sen. Eugene McCarthy, the remaining Democrat who campaigned against the war. But the "warnings" had kept the size down.
Among those who came were activists from Workers World Party and Youth Against War and Fascism. They brought slogans and chants to get U.S. troops out of Vietnam and police and troops out of the Black communities at home. They were ready to support the Chicago transit strikers. They also brought motorcycle helmets to face the police assaults.
The early confrontations took place in Lincoln Park, north of the city. The Yippies and other anti-war leaders had sought permits to sleep and have meetings in the park. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley denied the permits and ordered an 11 p.m. curfew.
Minutes after the 11 p.m. deadline Chicago cops waded in with clubs. Armored jeeps spewed tear gas and mace upon the unarmed youth. Cops chased youth into the streets, hitting them and anyone else unfortunate enough to be walking by.
Angered by the police actions, some Chicago residents opened their homes to those beaten badly who had no place to stay. WWP-YAWF members were invited in for the week by a family they had just met.
This contingent held morning meetings and divided into squads to participate in the activities that went on from daybreak to all hours of the night.
Chicago youths and students shocked by the attacks joined in these activities. Lincoln Park was filled with discussions and meetings from all different groups. Newspapers and leaflets were spread on the wall and the ground, making a scene familiar from stories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
As the night of the presidential nomination-Aug. 28--grew closer, police stepped up their attacks. Cops used clubs and tear gas to break up rallies and demonstrations. When Black Panther leader Bobby Seale tried to speak downtown, cops charged with tear gas and mace to break up the rally.
Other cops were assigned to isolate the demonstrators from the Chicago transit strike, which included many Black workers. Nevertheless, when strikers called a march and rally to the barns where the buses were stored, hundreds of youths, including the WWP contingent, marched with the workers to surround the barns.
Aug. 28, the day "the whole world was watching," is now being shown over and over on the television networks. The commentators now admit Daley's cops went wild attacking the demonstrators, but blame only Daley.
Those participating that day knew the Johnson administration had its people in the streets. U.S. troops were at the ready. And it was impossible to believe that this consummate Democratic mayor would act without the backing of his party's national leadership.
The day's activities started around noon in Grant Park, which was near the lake and downtown Chicago but was separated from the Convention Center by bridges blocked by the National Guard with their bayonets bared. The plan was to march out peacefully to reach the Convention Center.
It never happened. Cops charged the rally before it ended. The WWP-YAWF squads along with hundreds of others fought back, building barricades from park benches, and throwing back tear-gas canisters. Ted Dostal, a founding member of WWP, then 62 years old, participated alongside the youth.
Unlike some of that day's protesters interviewed in the media this August, Dostal, at 90, has kept his revolutionary working-class politics to this day. This spring and summer he gathered 1,000-plus signatures to put WWP on the ballot in Ohio.
Courage was contagious as the protesters, led by many youths, pushed back the cops and restored the security of the park. The cops retreated back to the streets.
But the battle had only begun. As dusk set in, it was clear that the National Guard had orders to keep protesters in the park. One WWP-YAWF squad found an opening north of downtown and led hundreds of protesters to a spot opposite the Statler Hotel.
They marched toward the Convention Center. As they moved through the South Side they saw dozens of armored vehicles and tanks with guns pointing at the Black community. These were not city cops or National Guard troops, but a U.S. armored division. They would be backed up by troops from Fort Hood, Texas, if there was any kind of rebellion from the Black community.
This group never made it to the Convention Center. Patrol cars surrounded them at a gas station miles from the center. But not giving up, they threw old tires from the gas station to slow down the cops and then climbed up to the stockyard tracks to find a way back to the city.
The brutal repression that followed was shown on television enough times that almost everyone has seen it. What was not shown was that evening, while the convention was going on, groups of youth, GIs on furlough, communists like the WWP-YAWF group, pacifists and Yippies met to assess the bloody events of the day.
Some GIs angrily threw their ribbons into small fires. Plans were made to support those who were arrested. Lawyers came forward to assist. There had been so many arrests cops herded protesters into an open field to be held and arraigned.
It was a week of intense struggle. The struggle raised the level of political consciousness of both participants and observers: Yippies, pacifists, McCarthy supporters and others who joined out of anger over the brutal repression.
As the week ended, participants held serious discussions on the repressive character of the state. The fight against capitalism-an idea only identified with old radicals and the 1930s-became a subject of interest.
The communists in the WWP-YAWF contingent had come to be part of the struggle with the rest of the youth, trying to win them to a Leninist, class-struggle view of the conflict with Washington and Wall Street. The 1968 Democratic Convention helped many young people understand the violent character of the capitalist state.
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