My Chicago Summer of ’68 Part VI—Out of Lincoln Park at Last

Irony of ironies, the Chicago Coliseum was a sports arena and exhibition hall built inside a war trophy--the castle like walls of infamous Libby Prison.  It had hosted political conventions including the 1896 Democratic Convention where William Jennings Bryan delivered his Cross of Gold Speech.  It had housed massive rallies by the German American Bund before World War II and rallies led by both Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Honorable Elijah Mohamed .  Not to mention hockey matches, wrestling, eight day bicycle races, roller derby, and the Rolling Stones.  Now on it's crumbling last legs Abbie Hoffman rented it for his LBJ Unbirthday Part.

I woke up sore as hell on Tuesday morning in the Church basement. Even when you are 19, days of fitful sleep on a cold, hard floor will get to you. Not that anyone slept a lot.

Coffee by the gallon in big white enamel pots boiling on the stove was the order of the day. Sugar was in short supply. So was milk that wasn’t powdered. Kids who had never had a cuppa joe black hung on to heavy mugs with both hands.

The big event of the day was LBJ’s Birthday Party. This was an Abbie Hoffman extravaganza to be held that afternoon at the old Chicago Coliseum. Big name musicians and speakers were advertised. And since the event was held in a rented and paid for hall, even the most jaded of us expected that it would come off.

The kids scattered either to head for the Coliseum or Lincoln Park. After cleanup, I headed out, too. I jumped on the L at the Diversey Station right across the street from the Church. The trains were still running despite the wildcat CTA strike. I had no sense then that I was scabbing on the strike by hopping on board.

By the time I got to the Coliseum on Wabash south of the Loop and only a block west and a couple south of Police Headquarters at 11th and State, it was already pretty full.

The castle-like stone exterior of the Coliseum had been the facade of the infamous Libby Prison in Virginia where thousands of Northern prisoners of war perished in harsh conditions. After the Civil War, the victorious Yankees  dismantled it stone by stone and re-assembled it after the Chicago Fire on burnt out ground south of the Loop. Inside the walls promoters built a sports arena, which also doubled, ironically enough as a convention hall. Democrats had assembled there in 1896 to hear William Jennings Bryan declaim his famous Cross of Gold speech.

But by this time the Coliseum was pretty rundown and only a couple of years away from demolition. It was still used for occasional wrestling matches and as a rock concert venue and rented out on the cheap to outfits who could not afford better digs for their events. Which, of course, fit the Yippies to a tee.

In Hoffman’s view it also had the advantage of putting a large crowd closer to the Convention site at the International Amphitheater at 43rd and Halstead than any permitted demonstration was able to get. That is except for a bunch of old time pacifists led by the Quakers who did get a permit and staged the only picketing near the Convention Hall all week with nearly 1000 participants on that very day. Neither the Yippies nor the media paid the slightest attention to those pacifists and their demonstration has vanished from memory.

I had last been in the building in April of ’67 where it was the site of a rally following one of the biggest of Chicago’s anti-war marches. I had seen Dr. King that day giving one of his early anti-war speeches.

The place was pretty much as I remembered it. Except because it was a cloudy day the sun shining through holes in the roof did not dapple the crowd.

Country Joe McDonald was nearly as ubiquitous that week as Phil Ochs.  He led us in the Fish Cheer at Abbie Hoffman's LBJ Unbirthday Party.

My main memory of the program was Country Joe McDonald and the Fish Cheer:

 

For it’s one, two, three

What are we fighting for?

Don’t ask me I don’t give a Damn!

Next stop is Vietnam

And it’s 5, 6, 7, open up the pearly gates

Well there ain’t no time to wonder why

Yippie! we’re all gonna die.

 

Phil Ochs was there, of course, and the literati, supposedly journalists for Esquire—Allen Ginsberg, Jean Genet, William Burroughs, and Terry Southern. How they were going to justify their press credentials after this was anyone’s guess. Hoffman, and Dave Dellinger and Rennie Davis of the Mobe provided the oratory. At the end comedian Dick Gregory took the stage and invited everyone over to his house on the South Side, which would take them by or near the Amphitheater.

                                    With typical Yippie cheek, a mock Convention was part of LBJ's Unbirthday Party at the Coliseum.

We surged out of the Coliseum and headed south. The vanguard of the 2000 people or so got no more than a couple of blocks before it was turned back by police. Reversing course the cry was now “Grant Park! Grant Park.!”

We made it to the park and took up the space across from the Convention Headquarters Hotel the Conrad Hilton on Michigan Ave.  The Hilton also housed the offices of Gene McCarthy’s campaign.  We mingled and chanted on the expanse of lawn in front of the General Logan equestrian statue.  For the first time, some climbed the statue, the site of a later bloody melee.  There were more speeches.  Because TV cameras were set up in the upper windows of the Hilton, for the first time national viewers got a good look at the protests, most of which had been held virtually out of sight of the bulky cameras.

We gathered in Grant Park across from the Conrad Hilton.  Convention Delegates and McCarthy staffers drifted over from the hotel and mingled with the growing crowd.

Curious or supportive McCarthy staffers and volunteers and even some Convention delegates crossed the street to mingle with us.  Other than some tussles at the edges, there was no major confrontation between police and demonstrators.  In fact the police allowed some demonstrators to remain in Grant Park all night unmolested.

As evening approached, I decided it was time to get back to the Movement Center.

I cut over to State Street and began walking north from there. Pretty soon I was alone. Across the river somewhere I moved over to Clark St. It is a very long hike from the south end of Downtown to the North side. By the time I got to Division I was tired and thirsty. I ducked into the bar of the old Mark Twain Hotel for a beer. Unknown to me, it was a hangout for the remnant of the old Bug House Square radicals, several of whom had gathered from the cheap rooming houses nearby to watch coverage of the convention on the saloon TV. When they saw me, it was not hard to for them to tell I was a demonstrator.

 The Mark Twain Hotel and its bar had seen better days when I stumbled on a nest of old Bug House Square radicals who plied me with Malort.

Three or four of them, yammering in various European accents, surrounded and peppered me with eager questions. They were also glad to stand me for a round or three or four. Beer, brandy, even Malort, once described as “incredibly bitter, with notes of earwax, fire, poison, and decaying flesh” offered to me out of respect for my supposedly manly willingness to face “the damn bulls.” I gagged down the Malort, although I think I would rather have been tear gassed. After an hour or so I stumbled out of the saloon and resumed my journey,

I passed through Lincoln Park that night, although my memory of it is hazy—damn that Malort. That was the evening the Black Panther Bobby Seals showed up just long enough to give a little speech about “resisting the pigs by any means necessary.” That little episode, the only thing he did all week in conjunction with the convention, was enough to get him indicted and eventually tied and gagged in Julius Hoffman’s courtroom.

It was also the evening that 200 clergymen raised a giant cross and prayed, for which the police were more than happy to crack their skulls.  Some witnesses called the attack on the clergy the most brutal of the whole week.

 

My Chicago Summer of ’68 Part IV—The Shit Hits the Fan

A Chicago Police line advances behind a haze of tear gas to push demonstrators out of Lincoln Park Sunday night.  A handful of  Marshals moved between the cops and the retreating protesters as they spilled out of the park into the streets of Old Town.

Yesterday I ambled to Lincoln Park to check out the territory and checked in to my Movement Center assignment.  Now on Sunday things first come to a head.

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 volunteers slapped together more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and wrapped them in waxed paper as rations for the day. As the kids 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 alley. As I was heaving the second one, I was surprised by two burly guys.

When the burly cops rousted and questioned me, my mind flashed on all of the old movies I had seen.  I had to bite my tongue to keep from answering "What about it, flatfoot."

“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 low ‘70’s and even high 60’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 makeshift 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 drawerfuls of them.

That’s how I set out from the church sometime 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 Stockton 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. 

Two plain clothes cops in Lincoln Park were taping over the municipal license plates on their unmarked car.  I decided to ask why.

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 adrenaline that I would experience several more times that week.

Phil Ochs and Country Joe McDonald played from park benches and makeshift stages in Lincoln Park on Sunday.  They seemed to be everywhere Convention week, especially Ochs.

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 afternoons 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 flatbed 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 as police began to form cordons around the crowd. 

Listening to speakers Sunday afternoon.  The crowd was less stereotypical hippie than in the public imagination.  A lot of students, little really long hair.  A good many local kids from the neighborhood like the kid in the t-shirt to the left and more Black faces than usually credited from near-by Cabrini Green and the Wells Street scene.

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 places 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 in the corner with big plate glass windows.  The lights were dimmed inside but it was open.  I decided I needed 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.

I met SDS leader Carl Oglesby in a darkened Lincoln Avenue tavern, shared a beer with him, and sent him into trouble.

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 one 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.   They 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.

Next—Monday turned out to be my labor day of Convention week.  First an unexpected invitation that would change my life then joining the SDS on a CTA strike picket line.