What do you think?
Rate this book
Rights in Conflict: Convention Week in Chicago, 8/25-29/1968: A Report
s/t: The violent confrontation of demonstrators & police in the parks & streets of Chicago during the week of the Democratic National Convention of 1968: A report submitted by Daniel Walker, director of the Chicago Study Team, to the National Commission on the Causes & Prevention of Violence.
Many black & white photographs.
Contents: summary, photographic chronology, gathering forces (prelude to convention week), permit negotiations, eleventh hour, how the city prepared, Lincoln Park (the violence begins), marches & melees, Wednesday- the culmination of violence, the prolice & the press, conflict & communion, supplement (injuries, police vehicles damaged, weapons, assults), the study team staff. Maps of central Chicago area, amphitheatre & surrounding area, Lincoln Park & near North Side, Grant Park area, flagpole incident in Grant Park, Conrad Hilton confrontation
Many black & white photographs.
Contents: summary, photographic chronology, gathering forces (prelude to convention week), permit negotiations, eleventh hour, how the city prepared, Lincoln Park (the violence begins), marches & melees, Wednesday- the culmination of violence, the prolice & the press, conflict & communion, supplement (injuries, police vehicles damaged, weapons, assults), the study team staff. Maps of central Chicago area, amphitheatre & surrounding area, Lincoln Park & near North Side, Grant Park area, flagpole incident in Grant Park, Conrad Hilton confrontation
382 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1968
28 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Walker
121 books9 followersDaniel Walker has worked as an undercover investigator for a number of nonprofit organizations working to free women and children from sex trafficking in the United States and in over a dozen countries around the world. He holds a master's degree in Third World economic development from Eastern University in Philadelphia.
He has over twenty years of experience in law enforcement and is currently working as a police detective based in New Zealand. He has also founded Nvader, a organization to combat human trafficking.
He has over twenty years of experience in law enforcement and is currently working as a police detective based in New Zealand. He has also founded Nvader, a organization to combat human trafficking.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 21, 2015
Having worked in Eugene McCarthy's primary campaign since its outset, it was very important to me to return from Honolulu to Chicago for the Democratic National Convention. Suspecting my parents might not approve, but knowing they'd be without a telephone in Michigan, I changed my ticket and returned without warning, calling my grandmother for a ride from O'Hare airport.
The first day I spent on Gene McCarthy's personal detail at and around the Hilton Hotel. We youngsters would follow him from press conference to meeting to press conference, linking arms to prevent crowds from impeding his movements. After a few hours of this and of handing out press packets to reporters, I went off on my own to the various hotels downtown, visiting the various campaign headquarters. The most significant event was finding the Lester Maddox office on the upper floor of one hotel. Maddox, former Governor of Georgia and notorious racist, was a favorite son candidate. His office had one campaign worker who, after a little conversation, asked if I and another young visitor would mind holding down the fort while he went out to eat. He left and the two of us went through the desks and cabinets, taking everything of value, stuffing it into bags and depositing it into a dumpster a few blocks aways.
When I got home that night, Mom was waiting. Apparently grandmother had called a neighbor in Michigan who had relayed the news that I was home. Oops! She insisted I come back there with her. I refused. She cried. I went.
Arriving in Michigan two hours later, I found Dad still awake
om the living room. Reminding him of how much I'd worked in Illinois and Hawaii for the McCarthy campaign, I asked his permission to return to the city. A McCarthy supporter himself, he assented, warning me to be careful because the papers were predicting violence. The next morning I was driven to the Chicago South Shore South Bend train and on my way back to the city.
The violence erupted on that afternoon when, according to the official Walker report, a plainclothes cop pretending to be a protestor took down a flag at the Grant Park bandshell during a Phil Ochs etc. concert and the uniformed cops used that to attack the crowd, batons swinging. I was at the Hilton that day, helping to organize a rally in front of the hotel, when first police and then national guardsmen, bayonets fixed, started taking positions to block Michigan Avenue. Our rally was prohibited and all the news trucks had departed when the first cries became audible. The people from the abortive concert had managed to cross one or more unguarded bridges across the Illinois Central tracks and were headed for the Hilton, headquarters of both the McCarthy and Humphrey campaigns. Police were trying to stop them with tear gas grenades and batons, but the crowd was too large and they merged with those of us in front of the hotel and across the street in the park. It was chaos. I was near the corner of Balbo and Michigan when the press got so heavy that the plate glass windows of the bar there were shattered and people, bloodied, poured in. The cops were beating everyone they could reach with their clubs. We were driven down Balbo by a phalanx of guards, one of whom broke ranks and charged us with his bayonet before being overcome by his officer. We fled into an abandoned building west of the loop as half-tracks patroled the gas filled streets, hiding out for hours before daring to return to our homes.
The next night was much the same: Demonstrators attempting to assemble across from the Hilton. Police and guardsmen attempting to prevent them. Tear gass grenades lobed at us, then tossed back. Charging ranks of cops, their identification badges removed, beating everyone they could lay their hands on. Then, later, relative stillness as the Rev. Ralph Abernathy's mule train passed enroute to the Convention site itself, followed later by a procession of candle carryind delegates to that convention protesting the violence that was still occurring.
I write this now, years after the event, without reference to the paper I wrote about the convention and these events some weeks later. Someday I should pull it out and type it up. In the meantime the best official report on these events was that done by a subcommittee of the President's Commission on the Causes of Violence. Called the "Walker Report" after its chair and published as Rights in Conflict, it gives a fair accounting of the events in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
The first day I spent on Gene McCarthy's personal detail at and around the Hilton Hotel. We youngsters would follow him from press conference to meeting to press conference, linking arms to prevent crowds from impeding his movements. After a few hours of this and of handing out press packets to reporters, I went off on my own to the various hotels downtown, visiting the various campaign headquarters. The most significant event was finding the Lester Maddox office on the upper floor of one hotel. Maddox, former Governor of Georgia and notorious racist, was a favorite son candidate. His office had one campaign worker who, after a little conversation, asked if I and another young visitor would mind holding down the fort while he went out to eat. He left and the two of us went through the desks and cabinets, taking everything of value, stuffing it into bags and depositing it into a dumpster a few blocks aways.
When I got home that night, Mom was waiting. Apparently grandmother had called a neighbor in Michigan who had relayed the news that I was home. Oops! She insisted I come back there with her. I refused. She cried. I went.
Arriving in Michigan two hours later, I found Dad still awake
om the living room. Reminding him of how much I'd worked in Illinois and Hawaii for the McCarthy campaign, I asked his permission to return to the city. A McCarthy supporter himself, he assented, warning me to be careful because the papers were predicting violence. The next morning I was driven to the Chicago South Shore South Bend train and on my way back to the city.
The violence erupted on that afternoon when, according to the official Walker report, a plainclothes cop pretending to be a protestor took down a flag at the Grant Park bandshell during a Phil Ochs etc. concert and the uniformed cops used that to attack the crowd, batons swinging. I was at the Hilton that day, helping to organize a rally in front of the hotel, when first police and then national guardsmen, bayonets fixed, started taking positions to block Michigan Avenue. Our rally was prohibited and all the news trucks had departed when the first cries became audible. The people from the abortive concert had managed to cross one or more unguarded bridges across the Illinois Central tracks and were headed for the Hilton, headquarters of both the McCarthy and Humphrey campaigns. Police were trying to stop them with tear gas grenades and batons, but the crowd was too large and they merged with those of us in front of the hotel and across the street in the park. It was chaos. I was near the corner of Balbo and Michigan when the press got so heavy that the plate glass windows of the bar there were shattered and people, bloodied, poured in. The cops were beating everyone they could reach with their clubs. We were driven down Balbo by a phalanx of guards, one of whom broke ranks and charged us with his bayonet before being overcome by his officer. We fled into an abandoned building west of the loop as half-tracks patroled the gas filled streets, hiding out for hours before daring to return to our homes.
The next night was much the same: Demonstrators attempting to assemble across from the Hilton. Police and guardsmen attempting to prevent them. Tear gass grenades lobed at us, then tossed back. Charging ranks of cops, their identification badges removed, beating everyone they could lay their hands on. Then, later, relative stillness as the Rev. Ralph Abernathy's mule train passed enroute to the Convention site itself, followed later by a procession of candle carryind delegates to that convention protesting the violence that was still occurring.
I write this now, years after the event, without reference to the paper I wrote about the convention and these events some weeks later. Someday I should pull it out and type it up. In the meantime the best official report on these events was that done by a subcommittee of the President's Commission on the Causes of Violence. Called the "Walker Report" after its chair and published as Rights in Conflict, it gives a fair accounting of the events in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
December 4, 2008
For anyone curious about my dad "back in the day," you can play "Where's Chicago Eddie?" in the photo section! :D Hint: don't look for stripes. Look for a white button-down, unbuttoned.
November 9, 2011
A classic -- written immediately after the riots had occurred, and they were willing to be honest with themselves.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews