The Battle of Michigan Avenue

Senior producer Stu Schutzman blogs about his first convention: You couldn’t miss the signs if you tried: "HELLO DEMOCRATS, WELCOME TO CHICAGO." But those were not the signs of things to come, that steamy August week in 1968. And not everyone was welcome. 1968 was by then already one of the most tumultuous years of the 20th century. Bobby Kennedy assassinated. Dr Martin Luther King gunned down. The war raging in Vietnam, the opposition to war raging at home. The Democrats had second thoughts about holding their convention in Chicago, with the specter of huge anti-war demonstrations. They proposed moving to Miami, where they believed security would be better. But Richard Daley, the powerful mayor of Chicago, would have none of it. He assured the party he would keep the peace. I was a college kid back then, hired by CBS News to work the overnight at Chicago’s International Amphitheater. Eight of us shared a single room in the once-chic Palmer House. At 5 o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon, we got a call: "Party at the Alabama delegation. Conrad Hilton hotel, free food, be there." We were in no position to pass up free food. All week, anti-war demonstrators had gathered near the Conrad Hilton, which served as Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s campaign headquarters. Humphrey was the Democrats’ presumptive nominee, and in the eyes of the anti-war movement, he was joined at the hip to President Lyndon Johnson’s Viet Nam policy. Now Humphrey was the target of their wrath. And that night the Hilton was ground zero. When we got there, the streets were virtually impassable. Tens of thousands of young people surrounded the Hilton, chanting epithets Humphrey’s way. Trash cans were lit and quickly snuffed out, producing a smolder which presumably would ready the eyes for the ensuing tear gas. As the mob grew, the tension bordered on the unbearable for those of us in the middle of it. There would be no free food tonight. What amazed us was how it had not yet erupted; somehow, eerily, the lid stayed on. And then in the distance, the answer –  way down Michigan Avenue the silhouette of a convoy, then the distant clip-clop of horses. What was it? It was Rev Ralph David Abernathy and his Mule train working their way through Chicago’s streets to the convention site. This was the symbol of the civil rights movement and the spirit of Dr King all rolled into one, coming our way. The police wanted no part of them. We were in the middle of a mob, getting uglier by the minute. As the mule train approached, the police come out in force and parted the crowd like the Red Sea. When Dr Abernathy finally passed the Hilton, all hell broke loose. With tear gas and night sticks Chicago’s finest struck, herding as many of the protesters as possible into nearby Grant Park. Once the park was at capacity, police sealed it off and, as much of the world watched in horror, they began gassing and beating anyone in sight. An enormous riot unfolded, right before our eyes. We were lucky, very lucky to escape with only some burning eyes. Many weren’t so lucky. Nearly 600 people were arrested, hundreds more injured, in the "battle of Michigan Avenue". When the dust settled, debate reverberated across the nation. Some thought the rioters had gotten what they deserved; others believed democracy had suffered the worst blow. A commission appointed to investigate blamed the police. Mayor Daley gave the police…a raise.