When 21-year-old Indiana University philosophy student Craig Sautter drove to Chicago for the 1968 Democratic National Convention, he had an “inkling” that he would be in for a “wild day”.
There had been a series of riots after the back-to-back assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy just months before, and he could tell that simmering tensions were ready to boil over when thousands of protesters, police, politicians and delegates gathered in Chicago in August 1968 to pick who would be the next Democratic candidate for president.
Yet the young anti-Vietnam War activist was still shocked by what he saw: National Guardsmen with bayonets, protesters ripped from cars or beaten with police batons, and thick clouds of tear gas wafting through crowds of thousands.
The DNC Convention comes to Chicago in 7 days. Word on the street has it that 100,000 protesters and 25,000 migrants are being bused in to greet VP Kamala Harris and DNC bigwigs. If it sounds like the perfect storm, it is! $75 million in federal funds has been spent to ensure the… pic.twitter.com/UDT1xA7NwH
— Reporter William J. Kelly #thatreporter (@Williamjkelly) August 12, 2024
h/t Mauser
