Note: Fourth
in a series of re-posted memoirs. In
which I meet the Cops—twice—and things come to a head in Lincoln Park Sunday
night.
The high school kids
at the Movement Center at the Methodist Church on Diversey staggered out of their bed
rolls late on Sunday morning. The church service upstairs finally woke the last
of them. We served them a breakfast of Cheerios
in re-constituted non-fat dry milk, powdered eggs, toast, and coffee made
by the gallon in an industrial urn. Breakfast conversation was confined mostly
to grunts and groans. A few asked about the day’s activities as if they were
back at summer camp.
We slapped together
more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and wrapped them in waxed paper as
rations for the day. As they straggled out the door, a few of us cleaned up the
kitchen. I hauled a couple of galvanized garbage cans out to the dumpster in
the ally. As I was heaving the second one in, I was surprised by two burly
guys.
“We wanna talk wit
you,” one of them said. My mind flashed on dialogue from an old gangster flick.
Luckily I restrained myself from replying, “What about, flatfoot?”
It turns out they
wanted to know just who was inside. “We know the SDS is here. You one of them?” “No” I replied quite truthfully.
Having no SDS chapter at Shimer, I
had never taken out a card.
“We know who’s in
there, we just need you to confirm it,” the second cop said. “It’ll go easier
on you if you do.” He rattled off a couple of names I didn’t recognize anyway.
They could have been there, but I was blissfully ignorant.
We danced around for a
bit, me not giving any info, them asking questions they knew I would not
answer. After a few minutes another guy emerged from the Church with more
garbage. He took one look at us and ducked back in.
“Well, I guess that’s
all we need,” said cop #2. They let me go and climbed into a dark sedan. I
realized that the whole point of the exercise was for me to be seen talking to
them. They hoped that the others would assume I was a spy. Did it work? I have
no idea.
***
Nobody remembers how
cool Chicago was that week. Freakishly cool. August in Chicago was usually the
month of sweltering temperatures and TV news stories about the eternal battle
between the Fire Department and
neighborhood kids about open hydrants. Many mini-riots erupted when the
hydrants were shut down. And many Chicagoans escaped the heat by coming to the Lake Front parks to sleep. Whole
families would do it.
Not that year.
Starting Sunday daytime temperatures hovered in the upper 60’s, low 70’s.
Nights were downright chilly. That may have been good for the folks who usually
spent heat waves in the park because that year Mayor Daley had camping in the parks made illegal to head off the Yippies. Parks, he announced, would be
closed by police at exactly 11 pm. No exceptions. Thus were the battle lines
drawn.
The cool weather
changed my outfit. Gone were the short-sleeve white shirts, replaced with cheap
plaid flannels bought at Woolworths
for $2 each. It was even cool enough for a jacket. I had a jean jacket borrowed
from my pal Bill Delaney that had
the Rocking Bar D brand of his
family’s South Dakota ranch
emblazoned on the back. I pinned on a peace button. The red kerchief stayed. To
prepare for the expected clashes with police, I lined my battered white Stetson with rolled-up newspaper in the
crown as a make shift helmet. Around my waist I strapped my dad’s World War II utility belt—the same one
I used as a kid to play endless hours of Army.
Hung on the belt was a G.I. canteen
and ammo pouches stuffed with first aid supplies. I had appointed myself a
volunteer medic. In addition to the expected gauze, bandages, band-aids and
iodine, there were a dozen or more white pocket handkerchiefs filched from
Dad—in those distant days men had drawer fulls of them.
That’s how I set out
from the church some time after noon that Sunday. This time I cut down Clark Street then over into Lincoln Park north of the Zoo. The park, which would be teaming
with families on most weekend days, was nearly deserted. On Columbus Drive I saw two more of Chicago’s
finest. They were bending over at the rear of their unmarked car. As I grew
closer I could see that they were using masking tape to cover the numbers on
the license plate.
I walked up to them.
For some reason, I decided it would be a good idea to talk to them. This can
only be ascribed to a case of serious mental illness. “What you doin’” I ask.
In a split second I found my face being pushed into the trunk of the car, my
glasses falling off to the side. My arms were twisted up my back and my feet were
being kicked wide apart. If you are from Chicago, you know the position. One
cop was screaming at me “What the fuck is it to you, asshole!” or words to that
effect. I was sure I was going to be beaten senseless and thrown into the back
of the car, perhaps never to be seen again.
But the second cop
pulls the guy off. “Let him go…we don’t have time for this shit…we got bigger
fish to fry.” Cop number one let me up and gave me a hard shove. “I’ll be
looking for you, kid.” They drove off as I searched for my glasses and felt the
first rush of adrenalin that I would experience several more times that week.
***
As I approached
the south end of the Park, I saw a growing crowd milling about. The Yippies had promised a free concert as a
lure to bring more kids to the park. Of
course they had no permit. But all
summer long regular “happenings” in Lincoln Park on Sunday afternoon had
included musical performances, including rock bands, and no permits were
needed. Abbie Hoffman, I would learn later, was frantically trying to get
last minute permission. Meanwhile
acoustic performers like Phil Ochs
and Country Joe McDonald stood on
park benches and tried to keep the crowd entertained. Only one rock band—the self-proclaimed Detroit revolutionaries MC5 had shown up. Late in the afternoon police allowed the band
to begin to play, but prevented a flat bed truck from coming in to act as a
stage and denied them city power.
Hoffman tapped the electric service of nearby concession stands and the
band began to play.
The concessionaires
complained and police ordered the power disconnected. The crowd was getting restless and angry.
They started taunting police who were standing by in large numbers. The Yippies again attempted to bring in the
flatbed truck, nearly reaching the planned stage area. MC5 tried to set up on it as Hoffman and
others encouraged the crowd. Police
demanded that the truck be moved out of the Park. Hoffman evidently agreed to move it to the
street by the park. When the truck
started retreating fighting broke out between cops and kids. Several were arrested and hauled away was
police began to form cordons around the crowd.
That’s when
Hoffman told the crowd that “the Pigs had shut the festival down.” Speeches replaced music. They tried to organize the crowd. Don’t fight to stay in the park at closing,
we were told, “Take it to the streets.”
All evening long
tensions rose in the park. Police formed
skirmish lines and pushed into the crowd with batons swinging two or three
times. Kids responded with anything they
could throw. Some tear gas was
used.
After dark
things grew even more chaotic in the park.
Word circulated for designated Marshalls to move into position. That was me.
A dozen or so of us took up space on a low ridge not far inside the
park, ready to move. We lay among the
trees and watched a movie unfold as police advanced across the park. A large knot of protesters rallied around a
kid with a Vietcong flag riding on
the shoulders of others. The crowd held
at the edge of the park, surged back in, and retreated again a few times. The long line of Police advanced throwing
tear gas ahead.
All at once the
knot around the flag poured into the street.
That was our signal. With my
stomach doing things I never imagined possible, the other marshals and I took
our place in a line between the police and the crowd. We were stretched thin. Miraculously, the maneuver seemed to
work. The police line halted at the
park’s edge. The crowd moved out and
began to disappear at Clark and North, scattering into side streets. Tear gas hung in the air. But the whole thing seemed to me to be
suddenly over without the major battle I had envisioned.
There was no one
around to tell us what to do. I decided
to head back to the Movement Center. I headed
up Wells to Lincoln. There was almost no
traffic. The streets were dark. Behind me I could hear occasional sirens.
By the time I
made it to Dickens I was tired and
thirsty. There was a large bar at the
corner with big plate glass windows. The
lights were dimmed inside but it was open.
I decided I need a beer. There
were just two men at the long bar. I
settled down a few stools away from them and ordered a tap beer. It was delivered in a schooner. Maybe the best beer of my life.
One of the men,
a tall fellow with a dark beard, glasses and a Greek fisherman’s cap asked me if I had been in the park. I told them I was. They called me over and bought me another
beer. The bearded on introduced
them. “I’m Carl Oglesby, this is Carl
Davidson.”
“I’ve heard of
you,” I stammered foolishly. Of course I
had. These guys were real movement
heavyweights—the President and Vice President respectively of
SDS. I was flattered by their
attention. They asked me what had
happened. I gave them my account of the
evening.
“How is it back
there now?” they asked. I told them that
it looked to me like everything was over for the night. “I guess we’ll go have a look.” So we left.
Them headed south on Lincoln on my intelligence. I headed north.
When I got back
to the Church, I found folks huddling around a radio. It seems that after I left protesters
reformed around the Clark/LaSalle/North Ave. intersection. The police surged out of the park to meet
them. A running battle in the streets of
Old Town with protestors and cops playing tag and the streets choking with gas
went on until morning. A few of our kids
straggled in with horror stories.
I wondered what
I had sent the two Carls into.
No comments:
Post a Comment