The Chicago Seven Turns 40

“Conspiracy? Hell, we couldn’t agree on lunch,” said activist Abbie Hoffman after a grand jury charged him and seven others for conspiracy to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

At the time, the nation was torn on who actually instigated the violence – the united front of thousands of anti-war demonstrators who descended on the Windy City or Chicago’s finest (many of whom removed their badges to hide their identities), a 12,000-strong battalion with orders to use brute force?

The debate was hardly black and white, but regardless, Chicago became a symbolic cauldron of national angst, the decade’s final flash-point of cultural turbulence.

But the main event originally began as the Chicago Eight, with a defense made up of the Youth International Party (YIPPIES), and the National Mobilization Comittee to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE), including Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, Lee Weiner, and Black Panther leader Bobby Seale.

Spewing venom at the judge for denying him a postponement, Seale was ordered bound and gagged and was eventually severed from the defense with a four-year prison sentence for contempt. Mocking the trial, the remaining Chicago Seven unleashed wave after wave of daily high jinks. For instance, Hoffman could be seen blowing kisses at jurors, and one day, he and Rubin showed up festooned in judicial robes. None of the defendants would rise for the judge.

In the end, none in the defense were found guilty of conspiracy, but under a federal provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, five were convicted of crossing state lines with the intent to incite a riot, which carried a penalty of five years imprisonment plus a $5,000 fine. Upon sentencing, each defendant was allowed to make a statement, and Hoffman recommended that the judge try taking LSD.

“I know a good dealer in Florida,” he said. “I could fix you up.”

Although the grand jury also charged eight police officers with excessive use of force, all were eventually acquitted. And not surprisingly, two years after the trial, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled a reversal on all the convictions of the defendants.

During the trial, authorities discovered an effective way of neutralizing dissent in America: simply tie grassroots leaders up with endless litigation and watch the opposition flounder. But the opposition also learned a valuable lesson: the courtroom can just as easily be exploited for equally effective guerrilla theater.

Photo courtesy tvol via Flickr.