The 1968 Democratic Convention Riot was a very contentious event that took place over a period of five days in Chicago, Illinois. The rioting began on Sunday, 25 August 1968, prior to the start of the convention and continued until the last day of the convention, 29 August 1968. Over the five-day period, close to 28,000 Chicago police officers, United States Army troops, Illinois National Guardsmen, and Secret Service Agents, clashed with activist groups and citizens who sought to protest the Vietnam Conflict and the direction of the Democratic Party at the convention (Mailer, 1997). The protesters organized from around the country and consisted of what Haynes (2008) described as “radicals, hippies, yippies [Youth International Party], [and] moderates” (para. 3). At least one of the groups, the yippies had a goal to bring 100,000 young adults to the demonstration (Mailer, 1997). Throughout the …show more content…
Daley gave his word to Democratic Party leaders that the convention would go undisturbed by demonstrators. To do so, Mailer adds, areas near the convention center were off limits to demonstrators and law enforcement was in place to enforce the prohibition. Mailer goes onto state that violence between demonstrators and law enforcement erupted as demonstrators attempted to go into areas that were off limits.
Aspects of the 1968 Democratic Convention riot were televised, giving it national media attentions. As a result, Mailer (1997) states, a Democratic led study was established to determine the cause of the riots. Mailer indicates that the study found that the Chicago Police Department carried most of the blame for the riot. In line with the study, I think the police are at fault, but I also think that some of the protesters were at fault giving that they intended to be confrontational. In the end, eight activist leaders were charged and convicted of crossing state lines to incite
This underrepresentation resulted in demonstrations and protests at the convention. The police response was excessive and violent. Which was disastrous and embarrassing for the Democratic Party.
“Freedom Is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements,” by Francesca Polletta focuses mainly on the strategies, methods, and tactics of three groups from the 1960s. The aim of the book was to exemplify the participatory democratic decision making in social movements. The first movement studied by Polletta was the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, which was a network of both black and white youths, many of which became the main organizers of the Mississippi Freedom Struggle. The second movement studied were the Students for a Democratic Society, who tried to emulate Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee’s organizing approach in seven cities in the northern United States. After the group participated in protesting the Vietnam War, the Students for a Democratic Society became a movement with a membership level in the tens of thousands.
For me, it was easy to see why some of the scholars were labeling the events that occurred a coup d'état rather than a riot. A coup is a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power while a riot is more of a violent disturbance of the peace by a crowd. The reason this falls more towards being a coup is because groups of people like the secret nine and Red Shirts gathered in a series of marches and rallies ultimately ready to fight the blacks. The event was planned, and in the article, The Lost History of an American Coup D'état written by Adrienne LaFrance and Vann Newkirk, in paragraph seven it stated, "Not only was it a coup, though, the massacre was arguably the nadir of post-slavery racial
Article 3 of the Constitution grants the Supreme Court the power to review cases and declare a verdict. However, the Supreme Court is only allowed to make a decision regarding a case if and only it is brought to them. In other words, only cases that has been passed through the lower courts and has made its way up into the Supreme Court is the Supreme Court allowed to make a decision. From the founding of the constitution, many cases have made its way up the courts and into the Supreme Court where the Justices deliver the final verdict. Cases similar to that of Nixon vs. United States challenged the federal power of the President.
The 1960’s and early 1970’s was a period when America was involved in many conflicts overseas, including the Vietnam War. This began a time when media spread quickly as well as influenced the public heavily and wars were first televised. These conflicts ultimately caused citizens to protest and question the motives of the federal government. A large number of these protestors were students who sought to combat problems through various tactics to get authority figures to remedy the problems they identified. Student protestors sought to combat many immediate and long-term problems involving this time period and the Vietnam War.
Through a comprehensive understanding of the motivations and underlying factors of the rioters in Baltimore, a deeper interpretation of post-revolutionary nationalism may be revealed. This gained knowledge would help twenty-first century Americans understand current nationalist trends and movements while such movements interact with contemporary political and socioeconomic variables. Therefore, the relatively peaceful demonstrations and assemblies common in the early republic unexpectedly turned violent in Baltimore City during the summer of 1812 because of the Federalist and Democratic-Republican politics and their interactions with the nationalistic, yet diverse, groups of wage laborers in Baltimore
Some Democrats even instigated riots at Republican rallies in order to reduce quantity of black residents.
The riot represented the ongoing efforts of the state with the amounts of police brutality and the public inquiries to end protests and public debates over political issues to preserve the law of order. Younger people were also against the idea of facism, where most adult conservatives would disagree, again creating that division between the population which is an ongoing situation leading to the present. We can tell today that many older conservatives versus younger leftists still have this “debate” of politics which may end in verbal aggression or other forms of violence (Boudreau 2019). There has been little progress regarding relations between youth and police although it isn’t so significant. The aftermath of the GasTown Riot consisted of many arrests, charges, injuries, and destruction.
America’s History makes the claim that “Antiwar demonstrators numbered in tens or, at most, hundreds of thousands, a small fraction of American youth, but they were vocal, visible, and determined” (Henretta, et al 915). It was no surprise when protests started breaking out all over the country during the Vietnam War, but it’s how the authorities handled the situation that has a bigger effect. On May 4, 1970, Kent State University students were on campus protesting the war taking place in Vietnam as The National Guard was called onto campus. Where they opened fire on students from all the confusion, chaos, and fear growing, and where four students were shot and killed. As tension in Vietnam grew, so did the tension in the U.S. and on a Saturday afternoon, tension had boiled over when a fire broke out at the campus ROTC building.
It all started when John Dudley announced over the loudspeaker during morning announcements, “Carolyn Coefield has lost her red pocketbook. If anyone has found it, please return it to the office.” On cue everyone had stood up and walked out the main door, they had kept walking following the designated path(NCPEDIA). All students had marched from Adkin High School to Queen Street, then to the recreation center on Easy Bright Street(NCPEDIA). Some of the students had been carrying homemade signs that said thing like “Freedom,” “Equal Rights,” and “Education.”(NCPEDIA).
The Chicago Race Riots of 1919 was a major conflict that began in Chicago Illinois because of racial tension between black and whites because of cultural differences. The Chicago race riots is also referred to as the “Red Summer” because of all the bloodshed that took place the summer after World war 1. The race riots began on July 27th, 1919 and ended August 3rd, 1919. On the first day of the riots thirty eight people died, 23 were black, 15 were white and 537 people. The race riots are a part of Chicago’s history that had a major affect on racial, political and social problems.
Thesis From the mid 1910s to the early 1960s there were many riots that occured, because of racial tensions built up between the the whites and the blacks world wide. Coming from Will Brown being accused of rapping a young white girl, and to Eugene Williams having rocks thrown at him causing him to drown. Segregation at this time was unjustified due to racism still being heavily considered as the right thing to do. These riots caused the United States to be even more segregated, due to unequal rights and no laws being created at the time to help and protect African Americans. During these riots there were cases of police brutality and whites being able to do whatever they choose to do, because they felt as if it was a justified reason to stop the African Americans from rioting.
The Detroit Race Riot of June-July 1943 always had the question mark as to what the cause was for the riots. It has also been known as the “biggest and bloodiest race riots in the history of the United States” of America. A review that was completed by Welfred Holmes reveals some information from the book with the title: The Detroit Race Riot: A Study in Violence by Robert Shogan, and Tom Craig. The information that came to the fore was that the book explained the build-up to the riots as it occurred at least one year before the event. It was revealed that the morale of the Black people (Negroes as the book calls them) was very low.
In Mark Bauerlein’s, Negrophobia: A Race Riot in Atlanta, 1906, the political and social events leading to the riot are analyzed. The center of events took place around and inside Atlanta in the early 1900’s. The riot broke out on the evening of September 22, 1906. Prior to the riot in 1906, elections were being held for a new Georgia governor. Bauerlein organizes his book in chronological order to effectively recount the events that led to the riot.