Chicago is a city that accommodates patriotism and dissent. These two forces have sometimes been at odds, but ultimately they both have managed to thrive.
Rick Kogan’s story about Caroline Kennedy begins at the Hilton, which for so many of us elicits memories of the bloody clashes between police and protesters during the 1968 Democratic National Convention held here. Like everyone else, I was glued to the television set, watching the events of that evening, and remember some of the protesters climbing the statue of a Civil War hero that sits across the street from the hotel in Grant Park. As Rick reminded me the other day, the statue is a representation of Gen. John Alexander Logan, whose name now labels a boulevard, a plaza and an entire neighborhood, Logan Square. It was Logan who spearheaded the creation of Memorial Day.
Rick–who, by the way, was recently inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame and won the prestigious Studs Terkel Award from the Community Media Workshop–followed Caroline Kennedy here in Chicago and in New York. They talked about the meaning of the word patriotism and her latest book, an anthology that Rick calls “a celebration of a country that allows people to speak out without the threat of jail or death.” Also in this issue, Noah Isackson interviews some who have done so, and Julia Keller decodes the cultural DNA of our attitudes toward dissent.
We hope this issue of the Magazine sparks debate about a couple of words–patriotism and dissent–as well as what it means to be citizens of America, and of this complicated world.