Chicago Seven

Planning for the 1968 DNC protests In the fall of 1967, David Dellinger was the director of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (the Mobe), and planning began during Mobe meetings for an antiwar demonstration at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. A similar plan was created by Students for a Democratic Society Vice President Vernon T. Grizzard, titled "Summer 1968: Possibilities for New Local Organizing". In early 1968, the Tet Offensive against American forces in Vietnam started, and in February, Walter Cronkite said the war was "lost". In March, President Lyndon Johnson ended his campaign for the nomination. as a response to what they described as the Democratic "Convention of Death". In January, the Yippies had issued a statement that included: "Join us in Chicago in August for an international festival of youth music and theater ... Come all you rebels, youth spirits, rock minstrels, truth seekers, peacock freaks, poets, barricade jumpers, dancers, lovers and artists ... We are there! There are 500,000 of us dancing in the streets, throbbing with amplifiers and harmony. We are making love in the parks ..." A week before the start of the convention, Mobe organizers sued in federal court to obtain permits to use the parks, but were denied on August23. On Saturday, August 24, Lincoln Park was cleared almost without incident, with Allen Ginsberg leading many protesters out of the park before the 11 p.m. curfew. The 4,865 city firefighters were ordered to work extra shifts beginning on the Sunday before the convention, and the Chicago Police Department placed 1,500 uniformed officers outside the International Amphitheatre, where the Democratic convention was held, including snipers. Police pushed protesters through plate-glass windows, then pursued them inside and beat them as they sprawled on the broken glass. Investigation of the violence Investigations were conducted by the City of Chicago, the U.S. Department of Justice, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), and the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. Bruce Ragsdale writes that the HUAC chair, Richard Ichord, "suspected communist involvement in the demonstrations", but the hearings "devolved into a bizarre preview of the conspiracy trial when a shirtless, barefooted Jerry Rubin burst into the hearing room with a bandolier of bullets and a toy gun." while trying to attend a HUAC meeting after being subpoenaed to appear. Tom Hayden also testified during the hearings. On September 4, 1968, Milton Eisenhower, chair of the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, announced the commission would investigate and report its findings to President Lyndon Johnson. Supervised by Daniel Walker, more than 200 investigators conducted interviews of more than 1,400 witnesses and reviewed FBI reports and film. The Walker Report was released on December 1, 1968, and described the violence as a "police riot". The report summary included: :That some policemen lost control of themselves under exceedingly provocative circumstances can perhaps be understood; but not condoned. If no action is taken against them, the effect can only be to discourage the majority of policemen who acted responsibly, and further weaken the bond between police and community. The Walker Report also acknowledged provocation and violence by some protesters and stated the "vast majority of the demonstrators were intent on expressing by peaceful means their dissent." The Department of Justice investigation did not support prosecution of demonstrators. Attorney General Ramsey Clark asked the U.S. attorney in Chicago to investigate the Chicago police. == Grand jury and indictment ==

On September 9, 1968, a grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois began to investigate demonstration organizers for federal law violations and police officers for civil rights violations. Seven police officers were charged with assault and one police officer was charged with perjury. The charges against the demonstrators were the first prosecutions under the anti-riot provisions of Title X of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. ==Trial==

The original eight defendants were Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, Lee Weiner, and Bobby Seale. The defense attorneys were William Kunstler, Leonard Weinglass of the Center for Constitutional Rights, as well as Michael Kennedy, Michael Tigar, Charles Garry, Gerald Lefcourt, and Dennis Roberts. The presiding judge was Julius Hoffman (no relation to Abbie), and the prosecutors were Richard Schultz and Tom Foran. Trial begins The trial began on September 24, 1969. The government called 53 witnesses, including undercover police officer Robert Pierson, who worked as a bodyguard for Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, and testified that on October 8, 1969, he heard Abbie Hoffman say "If they push us out of the park tonight, we're going to break windows", and about statements made by Rubin, Seale, and Davis. Police officer William Frapolly testified about his undercover work, which included joining Students for a Democratic Society and the National Mobilization Committee. Bobby Seale Seale was initially represented by Charles Garry, who appeared at the April 9 arraignment. Seale protested the judge's actions, arguing that they were not only illegal, but also racist, telling the court on September 26, "If I am consistently denied this right of legal defense counsel of my choice, who is effective, by the judge of this court, then I can only see the judge as a blatant racist of the United States court." and Seale replied, "If a witness is on the stand and testifies against me and I stand up and speak out in behalf of my right to have my lawyer and to defend myself and you deny me that, I have a right to make those requests. I have a right to make those demands on my constitutional rights. I have a constitutional right to speak, and if you try to suppress my constitutional right to speak out in behalf of my constitutional rights, then I can only see you as a bigot, a racist, and a fascist, and I have said before and clearly indicated on the record." On three days, struggling to get free, and at times managing to loudly insist on his right to defend himself. A political trial On October 15, when the first Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam was observed across the country, the defendants attempted to place American and South Vietnamese flags on the defense table, but Judge Hoffman demanded them removed, stating, "Whatever decoration there is the courtroom will be furnished by the government and I think things look alright in this courtroom." Abbie Hoffman and Rennie Davis testified at the trial. Judy Collins attempted to sing "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" during her testimony, before Judge Hoffman forbade it, so Collins recited the lyrics instead. The judge also forbade Ochs from singing "I Ain't Marching Any More," Guthrie from singing "Alice's Restaurant", and McDonald from singing "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin-To-Die-Rag". Ginsberg recited poetry and chants, including O-o-m-m-m-m-m, while providing testimony about his participation in the demonstrations. On January 28, 1970, Ramsey Clark, the U.S. Attorney General under President Lyndon Johnson during the 1968 Democratic Convention, was barred by the judge from testifying before the jury after Clark testified outside the presence of the jury. On February 5, Abbie Hoffman shouted, "Your idea of justice is the only obscenity in this court, Julie", at Judge Hoffman and then yelled shande fur de goyim at him, after Rubin told the judge, "Every kid in the world hates you because they know what you represent. You are synonymous with Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler equals Julius Hitler." These insults had followed Judge Hoffman stating that he intended to continue using the revocation of bail in response to the use of "vile epithets" in the courtroom, while the defense attorneys were arguing against the revocation of Dellinger's bail the day before, after Dellinger shouted a "barnyard vulgarity" at a government witness. On February 6, Abbie Hoffman and Rubin wore judicial robes to court, then threw them down and stepped on them. On February 14, the case went to the jury, ==Contempt citations==

During the proceedings, all of the defendants and nearly all of their attorneys were cited for contempt of court by Judge Hoffman. Pre-trial Attorneys Michael Kennedy, Dennis Roberts, Michael Tigar, and Gerald Lefcourt assisted the defense with pretrial motions. Before the trial began, Judge Hoffman held them all in contempt after they attempted to withdraw from the case, issued bench warrants for their arrest, and had Tigar and Lefcourt jailed. Post-trial On February 14 and 15, 1970, while the jury deliberated on the verdict for the remaining defendants, Judge Hoffman convicted all the defendants—and their attorneys Kunstler and Weinglass—on a total of 159 counts of criminal contempt. The sentences for the defendants and their attorneys were as follows: • Dellinger: 29 months and 16 days on 32 counts • Davis: 25 months and 14 days on 23 counts • Froines: 5 months and 15 days on 10 counts • Hayden: 14 months and 14 days for 11 counts • Hoffman: 8 months for 24 counts • Rubin: 25 months and 23 days for 16 counts • Weiner: 2 months and 18 days on 7 counts • Weinglass: 20 months and 16 days on 14 counts • Kunstler: 48 months and 13 days on 24 counts Six of the seven defendants remanded to jail received haircuts in the Cook County Jail; John Kifner of The New York Times reports that David Dellinger did not, and the others were "shorn of their long hair for what jail officials announced were 'sanitary reasons, while the lawyers' sentences were stayed until May 4, to allow them to work on the appeal. After the haircuts, Cook County Sheriff Joseph I. Woods showed pictures of the defendants to an audience on February 23, 1970, that Kifner reports consisted of "about 100 laughing and applauding members of the Elk Grove Township Republican organization at a meeting in the suburban Mount Prospect Country Club." The defendants were released from jail on February 28, 1970. ==Verdict==

On February 18, 1970, the jury acquitted all seven defendants of conspiracy and acquitted Froines and Weiner on all charges. The jury found Davis, Dellinger, Hayden, Hoffman, and Rubin guilty of traveling across state lines with intent to incite a riot. In a separate trial, seven of the indicted police officers were acquitted by the jury, and the case against the eighth indicted police officer was dismissed by the prosecution. ==Sentencing==

On February 20, 1970, in the sentencing phase of the trial, the defendants made statements, including David Dellinger, who said: :[W]hatever happens to us, however unjustified, will be slight compared to what has happened already to the Vietnamese people, to the black people in this country, to the criminals with whom we are now spending our days in the Cook County jail. I must have already lived longer than the normal life expectancy of a black person born when I was born, or born now. I must have already lived longer, 20 years longer, than the normal life expectancy in the underdeveloped countries which this country is trying to profiteer from and keep under its domain and control ... [S]ending us to prison, any punishment the Government can impose upon us, will not solve the problem of this country's rampant racism, will not solve the problem of economic injustice, it will not solve the problem of the foreign policy and the attacks upon the underdeveloped people of the world. The Government has misread the times in which we live, just like there was a time when it was possible to keep young people, women, black people, Mexican-American, anti-war people, people who believe in truth and justice and really believe in democracy, which it is going to be possible to keep them quiet or suppress them. Rennie Davis told Judge Hoffman, "You represent all that is old, ugly, bigoted, and repressive in this country, and I will tell you that the spirit of this defense table will devour your sickness in the next generation." The statement by Tom Hayden included: :We have known all along what the intent of the Government has been. We knew that before we set foot in the streets of Chicago. We knew that before we set foot on the streets of Chicago. We knew that before the famous events of August 28, 1968. If those events didn't happen, the Government would have had to invent them as I think it did for much of its evidence in this case, but because they were bound to put us away. They have failed. Oh, they are going to get rid of us, but they made us in the first place. We would hardly be notorious characters if they had left us alone in the streets of Chicago last year, but instead we became the architects, the masterminds, and the geniuses of a conspiracy to overthrow the government. We were invented. We were chosen by the Government to serve as scape goats for all that they wanted to prevent happening in the 1970s. The statement of Abbie Hoffman included a discussion of early American history, and: :In 1861 Abraham Lincoln in his inaugural address said, and I quote "When the people shall grow weary of their constitutional right to amend the government, they shall exert their revolutionary right to dismember and overthrow that government." If Abraham Lincoln had given that speech in Lincoln Park, he would be on trial right here in this courtroom, because that is an inciteful speech. That is a speech intended to create a riot. I don't even know what a riot is. I thought a riot was fun. Riot means you laugh, ha, ha. That is a riot. They call it a riot. :I didn't want to be that serious. I was supposed to be funny. I tried to be, I mean, but it was sad last night. I am not made to be a martyr. I tried to sign up a few years, but I went down there. They ran out of nails. What was I going to do? So I ended up being funny. It wasn't funny last night sitting in a prison cell, a 5 x 8 room, with no light in the room. I could have written a whole book last night. Nothing. No light in the room. Bedbugs all over. They bite. I haven't eaten in six days. I'm not on a hunger strike; you can call it that. It's just that the food stinks and I can't take it. :Well, we said it was like Alice in Wonderland coming in, now I feel like Alice in 1984, because I have lived through the winter of injustice in this trial. And it's fitting that if you went to the South and fought for voter registration and got arrested and beaten eleven or twelve times on those dusty roads for no bread, it's only fitting that you be arrested and tried under the civil rights act. That's the way it works. Judge Hoffman sentenced each convicted defendant to five years in prison, as well as a $5,000 fine and costs of prosecution. ==Appeal==

A United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit panel composed of Walter Cummings, Thomas Fairchild, and Wilbur Pell heard the appeals related to the criminal convictions and contempt convictions. Judge Edward Gignoux presided over the retrial and found Dellinger, Hoffman, Kunstler, and Rubin guilty of some of the charges but did not sentence any of them to jail or fines. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit dismissed four of the contempt convictions against Bobby Seale, remanded the other 12 for retrial before another judge, and the government declined to prosecute the remaining contempt charges. On November 21, 1972, all of the criminal convictions were reversed by the panel. The majority opinion of the court unanimously found several errors by Judge Hoffman and censured Judge Hoffman and the prosecutors for their conduct during the trial. The court noted, "the demeanor of the judge and the prosecutors would require reversal even if errors did not." The U.S. Department of Justice announced in January 1973 that it would not retry the defendants. ==Cultural representations==

Art • On September 25, 1969, Richard Avedon made his first wall-sized mural portrait of the Chicago Seven. It was first exhibited at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in the summer of 1970 and has since been exhibited in museums around the world. Avedon called the group of defendants "heroic". According to Froines and Weiner, an Avedon photo was used in thank you cards, holiday greetings, and fundraising requests sent to supporters. • During the trial, a poster created by Sharon Avery and featuring a photograph by Michael Abramson, that said "make a new year's revolution, kids! it'll bring you closer together" depicting Lee Weiner and his girlfriend at the time, Sharon Avery, nude and with Christmas tree lights in their hair, was distributed "to the young people waiting out on the cold to sit in on our trial to thank them for supporting us", according to Weiner. • Robert Crumb drew the poster for The Conspiracy Stomp, a benefit for the Chicago Eight held at the Aragon Ballroom on November 28, 1969. • David Hammons, in 'Injustice Case', depicted an African-American man bound to a chair and gagged that "[recalls] how Black Panther leader Bobby Seale was bound and gagged in a Chicago courtroom." Film • In Haskell Wexler's 1969 film Medium Cool, Vincent Canby of The New York Times writes that Wexler "uses some of the real events of [1968] ... as backgrounds that are extensions of the fictional characters." • The 1970 Kerry Feltham film Chicago 70 (also known as The Great Chicago Conspiracy Circus) was based on the stage play by the Toronto Workshop. • In 1970, the BBC produced The Chicago Conspiracy Trial, with Ronny Cox as Jerry Rubin, Cliff Gorman as Abbie Hoffman, and Al Freeman Jr. as Bobby Seale; the re-creation of the trial was aired in the US by PBS in July 1975. • In 1970, Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, of the Dziga Vertov Group, made a parody film of the Chicago 8 trial called Vladimir and Rosa. • In the 1971 Peter Watkins film Punishment Park, fictional members of the counterculture are put on trial for similar "crimes". • In the 1971 film Bananas, Woody Allen makes a reference to the binding and gagging of Bobby Seale during the Chicago 8 trial. Allen's character, Fielding Melish, is on trial and defending himself. The judge orders Melish bound and gagged. While bound and gagged, he cross-examines a prosecution witness. • The 1987 Jeremy Kagan made-for-HBO movie Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8 was adapted from the Ron Sossi and Frank Condon play The Chicago Conspiracy Trial, is based on the courtroom transcripts, and includes brief interviews with participants in the trial. • In the 2007 Brett Morgen film Chicago 10, archival footage, including Chicago in August 1968, is mixed with animated scenes based on the trial transcript. • The 2010 documentary Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune features interviews with a variety of Ochs' associates, including Tom Hayden, Jerry Rubin, and Abbie Hoffman. Stephen Holden of The New York Times writes, "Ochs's involvement with the civil rights and antiwar movements and his presence at the 1968 Democratic National Convention make "There but for Fortune" not only a biography but also a running history of the period's left-wing activism, replete with film clips of that decade's tragic events". • The 2011 Pinchas Perry film The Chicago 8 includes dialogue from some of the trial transcripts. Music • Phil Ochs released his 1969 album Rehearsals for Retirement with an image of his own tombstone on the cover, inscribed: "Born: El Paso, Texas 1940" and "Died: Chicago, Illinois 1968", which according to Ryan Smith of Chicago Reader, is an "obvious reference" to Ochs' role in the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests; the album also includes the song "William Butler Yeats Visits Lincoln Park", which describes Chicago during the convention. Ochs brought his guitar and was prepared to sing "I Ain't Marching Anymore" during his testimony at the trial of the Chicago Seven, but was denied the opportunity by the judge. • The 1971 song "Chicago" by Graham Nash, on Nash's solo debut album, Songs for Beginners was inspired by the anti-Vietnam protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the trial of the Chicago Eight, and the song opens with a reference to Bobby Seale, who was gagged and chained in the courtroom. • Researcher Justin Brummer, founding editor of the Vietnam War Song Project has catalogued over 25 songs that reference the Chicago Seven/Eight and/or the demonstrations during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, including "Telling It Straight in '68" by country artist Jim Hartley, "Where Were You in Chicago" by Phil Ochs, "Circus '68 '69" (1970) by Charlie Haden, "Christmas in My Soul" (1970) by Laura Nyro, "Free Bobby Now" (1970) by Black Panther group The Lumpen (about Bobby Seale), "Chicago's 7" by Walt Wilder, "Chicago 7" by Warren Farren, "Chicago Seven" (1971) by blues artist Memphis Slim, and "The Chicago Conspiracy" (1972) by David Peel. Theatre and plays • The 1970 off-Broadway play The Chicago 70 was an improvised drama by the Toronto Workshop Company based on the Chicago Seven trial transcripts and Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. • In 1972, playwright and screenwriter David Petersen's play Little Orphan Abbie based on the transcript of the trial, opened in Seattle, directed by Jody Briggs and starring Glenn Mazen. It was slated for production in New York by director Joe Papp, but had to be postponed and finally cancelled due to extended runs of other plays. It was later produced in Los Angeles, first on stage at the Burbage Theater, directed by Ron Hunter. It was later shot for television by Telemedia Productions, directed by Dick Studebaker. The television version used stock footage of the events in the parks and on the streets of Chicago during the riots. • In 1979, The Chicago Conspiracy Trial by Ron Sossi and Frank Condon was staged by the Odyssey Theater Ensemble and is based on the trial transcripts. The 15th anniversary production by the Odyssey Theater Ensemble featured Allan Miller (William Kunstler), Albie Selznick (Leonard Weinglass), Paul Provenza (Abbie Hoffman) and George Murdock (Judge Hoffman). • The 1993 John Goodchild play The Chicago Conspiracy Trial is based on the trial transcripts and produced by L.A. Theatre Works, the BBC and WFMT. The cast included David Schwimmer (Abbie Hoffman), Tom Amandes (Richard Schultz), George Murdock (Judge Julius Hoffman), and Mike Nussbaum (William Kunstler). Parodies • A Far Side cartoon had a boy with seven captured insects looking out on his windowsill to see a bunch of insects marching and holding a sign reading "Free the Mayonnaise Jar Seven". ==See also==