Riots in the streets of Chicago. Property destroyed. Tear gas. Accusations of systemic racism following the killing of a Black man. Claims of police brutality. Demands for law and order. Angry politicians taking sides and pointing fingers in a hotly contested election year.
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August 2020?
No, August 1968.
I was a delegate at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968. To this day, I still remember the acrid smell of tear gas around the Hilton Hotel. Back then I feared for the safety of my young children. Today, in my 95th year, my grandchildren fear for my safety.
In those riotous days of 1968 it sometimes felt like America was coming apart at the seams. America did not come apart, but many Americans have forgotten that 1968 even took place. Certainly they don’t remember the hard-earned lessons it taught both sides. As a result, both sides may have to pay the same heavy price to learn the same lessons all over again.
I knew then that the country was overdue for change. I supported Robert Kennedy for the Democratic nomination for president. I opposed the Vietnam War and wanted our country out of Vietnam. Kennedy also would’ve helped with the racial strife that was dividing the country. Passions were already running hot when he was murdered after the California primary.
I met with Vice President Hubert Humphrey at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago to urge him to break with President Lyndon Johnson on his war policy. Humphrey felt torn but did not speak out against the war as I had hoped. Constructive solutions seemed harder and harder to find. As the convention began, there were deep divisions in the Democratic Party and the country.
The irony is, with the passage of time both sides proved to have legitimate concerns, but both sides hurt their own case with violent overreactions and failure to compromise.
The protesters hurt their own case: On the war, the protesters were right. The leak of the Pentagon Papers proved that the government had been lying to Americans about the war in Vietnam, a fact later confessed publicly by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. But the riots hurt the demonstrators’ cause and delayed justice. By the time the convention riots were over, I knew there was no way the Democrats could win the 1968 election. The country turned to the Republicans for “law and order,” resulting in six years of Richard Nixon and everything the demonstrators did not want.
The authorities hurt their own case: The Republicans persuaded voters that it was time for a crackdown but ended up discrediting “law and order” for a generation. Over 40 government officials were jailed or indicted for their crimes, and the president and vice president resigned in shame. The attorney general, the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, was convicted of multiple crimes, making people more skeptical of law enforcement. The shooting deaths of four students by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State in 1970 helped trigger a cultural uprising the authorities could not contain.
Both sides had legitimate demands and grievances. Both sides lost patience with the system. Unfortunately, 1968 was a time of polarization when political leaders were willing to consolidate their power by preying on the anxieties of their constituencies.
As the violence of that era receded further and further in my memory, I thought those days were thankfully gone. But when you get to my age you find that everything comes back around.
People in the streets today may believe their outrage is new, that the country is experiencing these passions for the first time. These people need to study their history. It may feel satisfying to break a window, throw a rock or beat a protester, but in the long run you come out the loser. As philosopher George Santayana wrote, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Demonstrators chanted in 1968, “The whole world is watching,” but this time the world is watching to see if either side has learned anything.
Chicago attorney Newton N. Minow was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission from 1961 to 1963.
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