The Trial of the Chicago 7
The Trial of the Chicago 7: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
The Trial of the Chicago 7: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Hannah McCarthy:
By 1968, a lot of Americans were asking the same question.
Lyndon Baines Johnson:
It's just something that I don't understand why.
Lyndon Baines Johnson:
Why Vietnam?
Hannah McCarthy:
And a lot of Americans had had enough.
Archival:
If you're here for peace, let me hear you say peace. You want peace?.
Let's get it.
Hannah McCarthy:
I mine in April of that year under the controversy and cloud of the Vietnam War. With the conflict still going strong, with tens of thousands of Americans and millions of Vietnamese dead and a slipping approval rating and a barely won primary victory, incumbent President Lyndon Baines Johnson made an announcement.
Lyndon Baines Johnson:
I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.
Nick Capodice:
And Johnson is one of only six incumbent presidents to not run for reelection so far.
Hannah McCarthy:
Giving a deeply divided Democratic Party about six months to come up with a candidate before the August Democratic National Convention and the protesters plenty of time to prepare.
Archival:
Well, how much is it worth to you to call it off? Call off what? A million, would you have done it for a million. The revolution? Yeah. What's your price? My life.
Hannah McCarthy:
This is Civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy.
Nick Capodice:
I'm Nick Capodice.
Hannah McCarthy:
And today, as part of our series on federal court cases, I've got a little piece of theater for you called The Trial of the Chicago Seven.
Archival:
Defendants in the trial say its outcome could decide the future of free dissent in the United States.
Archival:
I think we're being tried with carrying a state of mind across the state border. We're doing quite well. I think we win every single day but the last if it wasn't for the law, we'd win hands down. Because you've seen that case, that's all. Never Neverland of insanity that only the US government and city of Chicago can dwell in.
Nick Capodice:
And that reporter there said it could decide the future of free dissent. Is the Chicago Seven a trial about protest?
Hannah McCarthy:
Yes. No, not officially, but yes. Officially, though, it was a trial about conspiracy to incite riots. Unofficially, a lot of people say it was a trial about making an example of some very loud dissenters who flooded into Chicago during the August 1968 DNC, the Democratic National Convention.
Archival:
I mean, everybody is allowed to do their thing. If some people storm the amphitheater, they storm the amphitheater. Some people want to swim naked in the lake. They swim naked in the lake. Other people want to go and tell the cops what we're doing. That's good. The cops want to come down and beat our heads. That's it. I mean, it's all conceived as a total theater with everyone becoming an actor.
Nick Capodice:
All right, let's get into it.
Hannah McCarthy:
Let's shall.
Victor Goode:
Ok. I'm a recently retired professor of law at the City University School of Law. But prior to that, I was the national director of the National Conference of Black Lawyers.
Hannah McCarthy:
This is Victor Good.
Victor Goode:
I was in Chicago in 1968 because I was an undergraduate at Northwestern University. The people that I was talking to and listening to knew that something bad was about to happen. And we knew the Chicago Police and many of my classmates said, look, these kids coming in from out of town don't know what they're about to get into.
Nick Capodice:
I have an ill divining soul here, Hannah.
Hannah McCarthy:
Yeah, conflict is coming, and I'm going to get to those kids coming in from out of town in just a minute here. But Victor reminded me of how the country was doing at this time.
Victor Goode:
Of course, John Kennedy is assassinated in 1963.
Archival:
From Dallas, Texas, the flash apparently official. President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time.
Victor Goode:
Lyndon Johnson, the vice president, assumes the presidency at.
Archival:
At 2:38 in the forward cabin of Air Force One. A necessary ceremony.
Archival:
You solemnly swear.
Victor Goode:
And he finishes Kennedy's one year, his final year term.
Nick Capodice:
And Johnson ran again, right?
Hannah McCarthy:
Yeah. Johnson overwhelmingly won his bid for a proper four year presidency.
Lyndon Baines Johnson:
I know that this is more than a victory of party or person.
Victor Goode:
So Johnson begins a number of initiatives. Great Society is what he call it Great Society programs. But Johnson also begins to escalate the war from 65 to 68. American troop deployment reached, I think, close to five or 600,000 troops. So it was a massive escalation of the war.
Hannah McCarthy:
And to be clear, a lot of the American public were not thrilled by this.
Victor Goode:
Despite the fact that antiwar protests were beginning in 65, 66, 67, the government was going in the opposite direction. And the government, of course, was led by the president and his party, the Democratic Party. And so with the Democratic Convention in Chicago, all the antiwar groups said this is a time for us to send a message, especially at the point of the election, that we want peace, we want an end to the American involvement in Vietnam.
Hannah McCarthy:
1968, everything is coming to a head.
Jeet Heer:
1968 was the year when everything was falling apart in America.
Hannah McCarthy:
I'm bringing in another guest. Please meet Jeet Heer, national affairs correspondent for the Nation.
Jeet Heer:
It began with the sort of Tet Offensive, which was an American military victory, but not really a sort of Pyrrhic victory, because the very fact that the Viet Cong got so close to actually taking over that attacked the American embassy really meant that, like, you know, people woke up to the fact that they had been lied to about the Vietnam War.
Nick Capodice:
And I suppose it didn't help the government's case that this was our first televised war. Like Americans were in their living rooms at night watching this war go down.
Archival:
The walls of houses. Ricochet... These Vietnamese Marines are spearheading the assault.
Jeet Heer:
Adding to the fuel to the fire, Martin Luther King jr. comes out against the war. Very hard decision because he is obviously very appreciative of what the Johnson administration was doing on civil rights. But the war got so bad and then King being assassinated, Robert Kennedy being assassinated, leading to the convention, which is going to be a sort of coronation for Hubert Humphrey. Various anti war forces and radical forces decide to make the convention a real spot for political protest.
Hannah McCarthy:
This is important to remember the people who showed up to protest in Chicago in 1968 were there primarily to call upon the delegates and politicians of the DNC to propose a resolution to end the war. And the Democrats at the convention, by the way, were intensely divided on the subject. Also, it is worth noting that Chicago had been the scene of deadly rioting months earlier following MLK Jr's assassination, during which Mayor Daley gave the police the authority to shoot, to kill or maim arsonists and looters. Many politicians wanted to move the convention to Miami, but Daley insisted he would keep things peaceful. So before we get into what went down, I want to establish who is actually organizing and showing up to protest because the leaders of some of these movements are going to end up becoming the Chicago Seven. Primarily the Yippies and the MOBE. First, allow me to introduce the Yippies.
Jeanne Barr:
The most vividly imaginative, creatively obvious where the Yippies.
Hannah McCarthy:
This is our third guest, Jeanne Barr, teacher and chair of the Department of History and Social Studies at the Frances W Parker School in Chicago.
Jeanne Barr:
This is the Youth International Party, which had been formed. As you know, today's audience might think of it as almost like a mockumentary in the vein of Spinal Tap or Best in Show.
Archival:
See, I can. I could hold you off forever just by using theatrical techniques. Oh, sure. You see.
Jeet Heer:
These are kind of a theatrical street performers. They were sort of real pioneers of something that we see much more commonly now, sort of politics as street theater, politics as mass entertainment. But as an example, to mock the convention, they nominated their own alternative candidate, Pigasus, a pig to be president.
Archival:
Why did you decide to become a candidate?
Jeanne Barr:
But these guys were very serious political actors, and they were using the mechanisms of politics as theater and theater as politics, and showing just the absurdity that was present in the military industrial complex, in modern racism, in solidarity with the civil rights movement, but definitely with their own agenda.
Hannah McCarthy:
The Yippies are led by two wildly enigmatic people. There was Abbie Hoffman.
Jeanne Barr:
Abbie Hoffman organized an event where he rained dollar bills down on the stock market back in the days when they used to, like, be down on the floor shouting at each other. And the traders were just grasping for the money. And it created this visual of these traders grasping for money that was sort of indelible. You know, they took photos and those pictures went out. So it was sort of like really early propaganda in the vein of using television and media long before digital media of the way that we know it now.
Hannah McCarthy:
And the other leader, that would be Jerry Rubin.
Jeanne Barr:
Jerry Rubin is the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. He organized protests at the Pentagon. They would march to the Pentagon famously, and they got way more people than people realize. You know, that was one of the visible moments of, you know, using the tactics of the civil rights movement to get the bodies into the street and show the visible signs that they were not alone. And then people who feel like they are alone start to recognize, like, oh, you know, there's other people who have my point of view and a movement is formed. He later famously tried to levitate the Pentagon levitating the evil spirits out of the Pentagon. And there's Jerry Rubin, running back and forth between the thousands of people out there levitating the Pentagon, which he said had been possessed by speeches.
Archival:
The task of writing and conducting the actual ritual of exorcism fell to Ed Saunders of the New York group The Fugs. He invoked a wide variety of forces... In the name of Zeus and the name of Anubis, God of the dead in the name of Seabourn Aphrodite.
Hannah McCarthy:
So that is the Yippies, the other major movement who organizes to go to Chicago. That would be the MOBE.
Jeanne Barr:
We should talk about the MOBE. Dave Dellinger is they sort of characterize him as the granddaddy. I think of him as one of the hearts and souls of the peace movement of the 20th century.
Hannah McCarthy:
Dave Dellinger, by the way, is of a different generation than a lot of the people who showed up to protest in '68. In contrast to the mostly young crowd, Dellinger was in his fifties and he'd been antiwar since World War Two, which back then was not the most popular of positions.
Nick Capodice:
And Dave Dellinger, is he the MOBE? Does he call himself that?
Hannah McCarthy:
I'm sorry. I can see how that was confusing. No. The MOBE is shorthand for the National Mobilization Committee to end the war in Vietnam. Its members included Dellinger, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Coretta Scott King and Dr. Benjamin Spock.
Nick Capodice:
Dr. Spock is in like the baby guy.
Hannah McCarthy:
Yeah, the very same.
Archival:
The easiest thing in the world for a doctor or for a doctor. Writing a book is to scare the bejesus out of people. And the previous books on child care all were along the general lines, Look out, stupid. If you don't do exactly what I say, you'll kill your child, or at least make your child very sick.
Nick Capodice:
As a quick aside, everyone. Dr. Spock's baby and child care was literally the only baby book my parents owned. This guy revolutionized the idea of how we parent.
Hannah McCarthy:
Yeah, pro babies, and antiwar. So. All right, here we are. We're in Chicago. And there's a Chicago office of the mob that is overseeing this major protest planning. And it was headed by two paragons of youth protest. First, Tom Hayden. He'd been a leader of the Students for Democratic Society, a huge national activist organization.
Jeanne Barr:
There were a lot of student groups. This was maybe the Uber student group, or at least Tom Hayden would like you to think so. They organized much of them at the University of Michigan, and a lot of it was their protest that kind of the same what we might call the dead white man canon was being sort of, they thought, shoved down the throats of students who wanted different teachers and different voices and different resources. Most campus professors were white. Most of them were male. Not all, but there was a certain liberal bent in their politics, but not necessarily in their representation. And so this was confronted. Hayden was a big part of this.
Hannah McCarthy:
Tom Hayden's right hand man was Rennie Davis, who, by the way, when you look at pictures of these guys together, especially if proudly unshaven, Abbie Hoffman or Jerry Rubin are around, Rennie stands out as this clean cut, bespectacled son of a Truman administration economist, which he was, but he was also the real deal and apparently a master organizer and recruiter for the movement.
Nick Capodice:
All right. I want to do a quick recap. I've got five so far, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Dave "the MOBE," Dellinger, Tom Hayden and the bespectacled Rennie Davis.
Hannah McCarthy:
Yeah, those. Were the major organizers of the DNC protests, the MOBE and the Yippies. The way I feel, I should point out, the MOBE was kind of organizing one protest while the Yippies were organizing another. Specifically, they were organizing the Festival of Life.
Archival:
The Democratic Party represented death. So the Yippies decided to hold a festival of life during the Democratic convention with free concerts, workshops in Parks, Yippie Olympics, a week long, joyful presentation of an alternative lifestyle.
Hannah McCarthy:
Which advertised, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, 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 in harmony.
Nick Capodice:
And by contrast, is the mob doing a more like stereotypical protest with speakers and lectures and that sort of thing?
Hannah McCarthy:
Yeah, it was just. It was a little.
Nick Capodice:
No peacock freaks.
Hannah McCarthy:
No peacock freaks.
Nick Capodice:
So slightly different approaches towards the same problem.
Hannah McCarthy:
Yeah, you could say that.
Nick Capodice:
All right. And you said that the leaders of these groups, the Yippies and the MOBE, eventually would become the accused in the Chicago seven trial. But again, I counted five. So who were the other two?
Hannah McCarthy:
Okay, the other two. You had John Froines and Leigh Weiner. These guys are considered the kind of forgotten defendants of the Chicago seven trial. They were not movement leaders. They were professors. And they weren't even given the exact same charges as the others. Some who have analyzed the trial suspect that what was going on with them is that the government brought them in as a warning to other academics who might consider joining in on protest. So that's hour seven, right? But actually, Nick, there is one more critical defendant because the Chicago seven, it was originally the Chicago eight. Here's Victor Goode again.
Victor Goode:
The Black Panther Party was brought in even though the Black Panther Party was not a major factor in those demonstrations. They went after Bobby Seale because the Black Panther Party had voiced their support for the demonstrations.
Hannah McCarthy:
Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panthers, a revolutionary group originally devoted to protecting black Americans from police brutality. It then grew to become a nationwide Marxist black power movement.
Victor Goode:
The Black Panther Party was not active in the antiwar movement. The Black Panther Party, of course, had their own platform in their own program.
Hannah McCarthy:
Still, the Black Panthers realized that the same government forces that were trying to shut down the antiwar movement were trying to shut down the Black Panther Party.
Victor Goode:
So they believed in coalition work. And so they said, look, you know, we support you guys because you folks are trying to change the government that's trying to oppress us, not trying to, but has been oppressing us for four decades. So they supported the struggle without actually being an active participant in the entire planning process.
Nick Capodice:
But Bobby Seale is not a member of the final Chicago seven.
Hannah McCarthy:
That's right. He is at a point removed from the case.
Nick Capodice:
Hannah?
Hannah McCarthy:
Yes, Nick.
Nick Capodice:
I think it's time we've got our defendants. And how did they end up being in a federal trial?
Hannah McCarthy:
That's coming up after the break.
Nick Capodice:
But real quick, listeners, I know for a fact that this episode is half as long as Hannah wanted it to be. If you want to see the stuff that didn't make it in all the fun side ephemera and trivia, just head on over to our website, civics101podcast.org and subscribe to Extra Credit. It's free. It's fun. You're going to love it.
Hannah McCarthy:
We're back and we're talking about the trial of the Chicago Seven, nay eight.
Nick Capodice:
Now, at the top of the episode, Hannah, you said that this was a trial about conspiracy.
Hannah McCarthy:
Correct. Most of the defendants were brought up on the charge of conspiracy to incite a riot.
Nick Capodice:
But it's also kind of a case about protest.
Hannah McCarthy:
That's the sort of simmering question in the courtroom. What is really on trial here? But to get to that courtroom, we have to start in the streets of Chicago in the months leading up to the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Here is Victor Goode again.
Victor Goode:
Richard J. Daley is mayor of Chicago, and some referred to him at that time as the emperor of Chicago. He had been mayor of Chicago, I think, for at least a dozen years. And not only was he mayor of Chicago, he was head of the county Democratic machine of Cook County. And so Daley was a key political operative in the overall Democratic Party. And so, first of all, he was very pleased that the Democratic Party was hosting its convention in his city, and he really meant his city.
Archival:
We respect the constitutional rights and the human rights of everyone, but no one will take the law in their own hand or be law and order in Chicago as long as I'm mayor.
Victor Goode:
So he had both an ego and a kind of a political interest in making everything go smoothly. So the idea that protesters were coming to his town and potentially disrupting this political moment that he was about to have as the organizer and convener of this convention was something that infuriated Daly. So was he planning to stop the demonstrations? To the extent that he could, the answer is yes.
Archival:
The peace groups are demanding permission to march on convention hall the night the Democrats nominate their candidate for president. The city says no. That would endanger security. There is a possibility of mass arrests unless the city allows the demonstrators to camp out in public parks. There is nowhere else for them to stay. At a news conference this morning, the mayor read a ringing statement of welcome to the protesters as if nothing was about to happen.
Victor Goode:
And you know what I say to the extent that he could. Therein lies the tension between the First Amendment on one hand, that guarantees persons a right to petition, government, to protest, to demonstrate, and on the other hand, certain limitations that are imposed on protesters so that it's not an absolute right. There are some limitations to what they call in a legal terms time, place and manner in which a protest can take place.
Hannah McCarthy:
Time, place and manner restrictions. In other words, if there is legitimate government interest to limit protest in public places, like if a protest would disrupt traffic or block the entrance to a building or result in public harassment, then it is constitutional for that government to limit protest. Even then, they have to provide, quote, alternative channels of communication. Another way to exercise your constitutional right to petition your government when you are dissatisfied. Now the organizers of the DNC protests knew that bringing thousands of protesters to Chicago parks and streets had the potential to obstruct the normal flow of things. They knew they would probably need a permit.
Victor Goode:
The city responded by giving them the most limited permit that they could. They limited where they could protest. They steered them away from the actual Democratic convention. And so the protesters goal, of course, was to to be seen and to be heard by the people going to the convention. And the city's objection was to prevent that from happening. And so the limitations were put on the protest. And the protesters agree, basically, we're not going to follow these these limitations. We have to be able to move along our our own protest route toward the convention hall so that the delegates to the convention would hear what we are saying and see what we were asking them to do.
Archival:
I take one look at the troops in Vietnam. I know what American foreign policy is about America now. That's America, the Democratic Party. Most of us here didn't come to support McCarthy, so.
Hannah McCarthy:
Hey Now Daley had about 12,000 cops and 6000 National Guard members on the streets, and they were joined by 6000 Army troops, all to keep protesters docile and away from the convention at Chicago's International Amphitheater.
Nick Capodice:
And how many protesters were there total?
Hannah McCarthy:
Well, the estimate at the most pivotal gatherings that week was around 10,000 people. But there are about 25,000 protesters in total in Chicago. Now, far fewer than Abbie Hoffman had said there would be, but about a 1 to 1 ratio of law enforcement to demonstrators. Arrests started to happen on August 23rd. You remember how Jeet here mentioned the Yippies nominating a pig to be president.
Nick Capodice:
Pigasus, a not so subtle way of saying that politicians are pigs.
Hannah McCarthy:
Yeah. And when they gathered in this place in Chicago called Civic Center Plaza to stage this spectacle and release the pig, the cops started arresting people, including Jerry Rubin. That is the beginning.
Archival:
We are not even on the street yet, although it is certainly our intention to march to the amphitheater in the street, because we think that the street is necessary to accommodate this many people. We may be nonviolent, but we're stubborn. And so we are appealing publicly through the press, through Deputy Commander Reardon on the sidewalk. We don't march today. Made very clear that.
Nick Capodice:
Now this does eventually escalate into a riot, correct?
Hannah McCarthy:
It would eventually be called a riot, yes. But I also want to be very clear, initial investigation did not blame the riot on the protesters over the course of days. There were clashes with police, many of them violent protesters. And members of the media were tear gassed and beaten. Surges of angry shouting protesters were met with brutal force on the part of the police. This all culminated in the bloody battle of Michigan Avenue.
Victor Goode:
Initially the police were pushing protesters out of Grant Park and Michigan Avenue was just a few blocks away from the park. So as they began to get corralled onto Michigan Avenue, some of the protesters began to respond by breaking windows. And the police, of course, responded by escalating their violence against the protesters. So this was the beginning of a series of escalations that ultimately coalesced in front of the Democratic National Convention itself in Grant Park, in which the police made a massive sweep against the protesters, in which and these, of course, of course, are the famous scenes that I'm sure many of your listeners have seen many times, both in video or in still shot photos of police wading into the crowds and beating and arresting anyone in everyone they encounter.
Hannah McCarthy:
At some point, officers pushed a group through a plate glass window and then beat them with billy clubs. And a lot of this, just like the war that these groups had come to protest, was caught on film and broadcast across the country. Again, this is Jeet here.
Jeet Heer:
One of the chants that the protesters had is the whole world is watching. And that's exactly the case. Perhaps maybe even give a sort of broader sense of how polarized the period was. One of the networks, I believe CBS had William Buckley Junior and Gore Vidal as the commentators of the Chicago. This is what's going on there. And Vidal was defending this protesters and Buckley was taking the the side of the cops.
Nick Capodice:
Oh, I have seen these conversations. William F Buckley and Gore Vidal, they had these televised debates during both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, and they were super heated. These two hated each other.
Archival:
Any point of view you want, they shut up a minute. No, I won't. Some people were pro-Nazi, and the answer is that they were they were well treated by people who ostracize them. And I'm for ostracizing people who egg on other people to shoot American Marines and American soldiers. I know you don't say anything but pro or crypto-Nazi I can think of as yourself failing that.
Jeet Heer:
So this is the state of American political discourse in Chicago in 68.
Hannah McCarthy:
So both inside and outside the convention, there's deep division, there's anger, there's violence. It is a perfect microcosmic expression of the state of dissatisfaction and disagreement in America in 1968. And immediately following this mess. Nick, Mayor Daley claims that the violence was caused by the protesters who unleashed it on the cops. However, President Johnson's National Violence Commission requested an investigation and report on these events. The investigation reviewed tens of thousands of pages of witness statements, thousands of eyewitness accounts, thousands of photographs, and nearly 200 hours of film of the events of these days. It concluded that most cops behaved responsibly, but that those who hadn't needed to be prosecuted. It said that some protesters were provocative and violent, but that most were peaceful. And most importantly, Nick, this report concluded that the violent events that had occurred in the streets during the 1968 DNC was a police riot.
Nick Capodice:
So the president received a report saying that this was a police riot and that some police ought to be prosecuted.
Hannah McCarthy:
That's right.
Nick Capodice:
How did that turn into eight protesters being charged with conspiracy?
Hannah McCarthy:
Well, based on Mayor Daley's report, again, which definitely indicted the protesters. A judge in Illinois convened a grand jury to investigate protesters and law enforcement alike. This grand jury process took six months. And in that time, Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic presidential candidate, lost to Richard Nixon.
Archival:
At almost midday Eastern Time, NBC News project projected Richard Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, when it became evident he had carried Illinois. Final returns may well reveal that indeed it was Mayor Richard Daley's Illinois and Mayor Richard Daley Chicago, which averted a deadlock and a political constitutional crisis of incredible proportions.
Hannah McCarthy:
Johnson wasn't president anymore. The violence commission was terminated. President Nixon appointed a new attorney general, and that AG strengthened the case against the protesters. This is despite the findings of Johnson's Violence Commission, despite the fact that these protesters attempted to obtain permits. The Illinois grand jury finally decided to charge seven officers with assault and one with perjury and eight protesters with conspiracy to use interstate commerce to incite a riot. Six of them also with crossing state lines to start a riot, and two of them with teaching demonstrators how to create incendiary devices for civil disturbance.
Nick Capodice:
Just to be clear, is that legalese for Molotov cocktails?
Hannah McCarthy:
Sure is.
Jeet Heer:
I think that the the government decided to make an example of this and decide to really prosecute the people who are the instigators of the trial. And then I think it's a very telling point that they also went after the Black Panthers, a real source of anxiety and fear in the ruling class. The idea of sort of militant black organization that was armed and and preaching multiracial revolution. And so they have this kind of, you know, the leaders of the other anti war protesters and the Black Panthers. And they had this big kind of trial and it became a spectacle.
Hannah McCarthy:
A spectacle in part because these defendants knew how to use media coverage and a stage, and they had both in that courtroom and a spectacle because of who presided over it all. Judge Julius Hoffman. Here's Gene Barr again.
Jeanne Barr:
He is, you know, thinks he's a liberal, thinks he's a defender of what is good and true in the American way. And he's under assault by this new generation, this new sort of way of thinking and his own complicity and his own, you know, blinders on. What what's confronting him is inability to read the room, as we might say today.
Archival:
Judge Julius Hoffman ordered the family of Bobby Seale out of his courtroom today for sitting in the press section while the defendants family was barred. Other coveted press seats were occupied by social friends of the court who are not reporters. As the Black Panther Party chairman's wife and five other relatives entered the courtroom, the judge leaned over to a U.S. marshal and said, Find out who these people are. If they don't have press credentials, get them out of here. The family was ordered to leave. Seale jumped up. Judge Hoffman, what about other black people who are not allowed to come into this courtroom? The judge relented, allowing Seale's family to sit in the back row. What the judge did not say is that private arrangements were made for people who are not reporters to sit in the press section throughout this trial.
Hannah McCarthy:
Throughout the trial, Judge Hoffman, no relation to Abbie, by the way, is met with the scoffs, mocking and legitimate calls for meaningful due process by the eight defendants.
Jeet Heer:
Going to a courtroom. You're supposed to like everyone rises as the judge rises and you're supposed to pay deference to the judge. Now, the brilliance and madness and genius of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin was that they realized, like, well, what if we did that? Like, what have we did not respect the majesty of the law or whatever. We just turn this into a circus. And what are they going to do?
Nick Capodice:
What what did Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin do?
Hannah McCarthy:
Well, they did things like show up in judge's robes. One day when asked to remove the robes, they revealed Chicago police uniforms underneath as they wiped their feet on those judge's robes. Abbie did a headstand on the defendants table. Jerry Rubin told Judge Hoffman that he was the laughing stock of the world. He called him synonymous with Hitler. Tom Hayden read the names of those recently killed in the war. Abbie Hoffman brought in a Vietcong flag.
Archival:
There was a physical fight in the federal courtroom in Chicago, where eight leaders of last year's anti-war demonstration at the Democratic National Convention are on trial for conspiring to incite a riot. A Viet Cong flag was. From the grasp of Abbie Hoffman touching off the most tumultuous incident of the trial, Judge Hoffman ruled that he would not allow enemy flags in his courtroom.
Nick Capodice:
This is just utter chaos. You just you don't hear about this kind of thing happening in a courtroom. It doesn't sound real.
Hannah McCarthy:
Well, part of the point is that the defendants thought this whole trial was baseless in terms of conspiracy. The Yippies and the MOBE did not plan together and they did not do anything in secret. Never mind the fact that they asked for permits to do it or the fact that Bobby Seale had no connection to these groups. So the defendants believed this trial was political, that what was actually on trial was the First Amendment right to petition, the right to, quote, appeal to government in favor of or against policies that affect them or in which they feel strongly that it was the US government trying to make a point about demonstrators who do not demure. And the defense lawyers, William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass, they were with them on that.
Archival:
One final indication of what our attitude is. We've decided to call our legal and political defense committee the conspiracy. We are people whose work against war, poverty, racism, corporate and military power is being called a conspiracy. We're proud of this work. We're going to continue it.
Jeet Heer:
The whole premise of their defense strategy was, well, this is already a farce, and if we treat it as if it's serious, then we're kind of like, you know, admitting that there's some sort of plausible claim here. We're conceding too much.
Hannah McCarthy:
Meanwhile, Judge Hoffman is just throwing out one contempt of court charge after another. And in the midst of all of this, by the way, is Bobby Seale. Bobby Seale, who was not a member of the Yippies or the MOBE. Bobby Seale, who is not a friend and collaborator of any of the other defendants. Bobby Seale, who was at the Chicago protests to make a speech and then go home the next day. Bobby Seale, who had his own lawyer.
Jeanne Barr:
Right. You know, he has a long history. He's not it doesn't come out of nowhere. He's got a whole persona. He's got a whole political organization. He's a known public entity. He's got his own lawyer. Right. So he's had his brushes with the law over the years and his lawyer is ill at the time of the trial, has just had gallbladder surgery and it's a convention of American trials. The judges usually say, oh, okay, well, we'll postpone out of courtesy to a lawyer who is ill legitimately. And he was and this judge didn't. And so he said that Bobby couldn't have his own lawyer. And Bobby was like, no, I'm not. I'm not going to trial without my own lawyer. That's my right. I have a Sixth Amendment right to have counsel out of this. Bobby becomes enraged and incensed, rightfully by his treatment by this judge. Really, really just an unfortunate turns. He ends up making the decision, long story short, to bound and gagged Bobby at the witness stand. He gets basically carried out of the taken out of court forcefully one day and then carried back in, tied to a chair with a gag.
Hannah McCarthy:
Here's Bobby Seale speaking with Democracy Now! In 2018.
Bobby Seale:
I was bound up my head. The only thing you could see is my my eyes and my nose. I was bound up with ace bandages. You know, the ace bandage you put around the knees when you're playing basketball, all stuff that tighten up. That's what I was. And then right around here, all the arteries just going down. And they brought me in the courtroom. My arms are strapped down to the wheelchair. My legs are strapped to the to the legs to the big, heavy wooden chair. The last day of gagging. And when I got in, I mean, I was losing blood pressure circulation.
Nick Capodice:
So Bobby Seale is incensed at the sheer lack of justice and constitutionality and the response to his anger. The judge has him bound and gagged.
Hannah McCarthy:
Three days in a row. Bobby Seale is the only black defendant in the room, and he's bound and gagged on the order of an indignant white judge. It was shocking. It was galling. And it was really bad optics.
Jeanne Barr:
Right. So that that was the atomic bomb. And then the judge issued a whole ton of contempt citations that were subject of protests outside the courtroom as lawyers around the country flew in to protest against the way the lawyers were being treated. So part of the legal breakdown of the trial certainly was a piece of the Bobby Seale part. They end up severing his case. So the Chicago eight becomes the Chicago seven. He ends up having his own trial. He's still alive. He sells barbecue sauce, among other things.
Hannah McCarthy:
The trial began on September 24th, 1969. It ended in late February 1970. Over the course of the trial, Allen Ginsberg was called to the stage here at poetry and chanted Ohm. Timothy Leary was called to the stand. Jesse Jackson testified. Norman Mailer testified. What? Nick It was theater. And like Jean said, it was real. Judge Julius Hoffman issued over 170 contempt of court charges against the defendants. When it came time for the jury to deliberate, Judge Hoffman on Brand didn't exactly stick with protocol.
Victor Goode:
At the end of any trial, a judge charges the jury at the charging phase. The judge says this is what the legal statutes require for a conviction. And if you find that these elements have been met, you can find a verdict of guilty for these these defendants.
Nick Capodice:
Basically, the judge says, here's how the law works. Use all the information you've learned during this trial to apply that law and find a verdict.
Hannah McCarthy:
Yeah, but Hoffman didn't do that.
Victor Goode:
Hoffman, however, described the law and charge the jury in such a way so that rather than merely describing the charge to the jury, describing the law, actually in some ways began to argue for conviction of guilt. There's no precedence for that at all.
Nick Capodice:
In other words, Judge Julius Hoffman sent the jury away with a strong bias. But did it have the desired effect?
Hannah McCarthy:
Well, first, Nick, the jury goes away to deliberate on the trial charges and Judge Hoffman goes ahead and convict everyone of his many, many contempt charges that he issued over the course of the trial. And this is something a judge does most certainly have the power to do in the United States, issue sanctions when that judge determines that someone has been disruptive or disrespectful in the courtroom. And Judge Hoffman, he goes with some serious sanctions, indeed, sentencing the defendants anywhere up to four years in prison.
Nick Capodice:
Wait. So before they even know if they're going to be found guilty of conspiracy, they've got prison sentences based on just contempt of court.
Hannah McCarthy:
That's right. The jury came back, though, and acquitted everyone of conspiracy and Froines and Weiner of all charges. They did find Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Dave Dellinger, Tom Hayden and Rennie Davis, guilty of traveling between states with the intent to start a riot. It didn't stick.
Victor Goode:
The appellate court took a look at what Judge Hoffman had done and basically tossed all the convictions and, of course, admonished Judge Hoffman for the way in which he had conducted that trial.
Nick Capodice:
Wait. After all that, after the violence in the streets, the conspiracy charges, the outrageous courtroom drama, did anything come out of it? Hanna Like what happened to the cops who were charged with assault and perjury?
Hannah McCarthy:
Nothing. Seven acquittals and one dropped case.
Nick Capodice:
And we know the war didn't end.
Hannah McCarthy:
It had another five years.
Nick Capodice:
So here's my question. Is there, there, there, or was this case just a loud disruption that didn't change anything like the antiwar protests in Chicago in 1968?
Hannah McCarthy:
This is an important question. Does political theater, which I think we can safely say this case proved itself to be both on the part of the government and the defendants result in change?
Jeet Heer:
Well, I think that the basic lesson, which I think that the defendants all shared was an awareness of that the legal system is not just about laws, that there's also a sort of politics implicit in it, and that the consequences of a legal trial aren't just like the decisions that are made, but exactly like it is. It got a huge amount of attention and changed a lot of attitudes and polarize a lot of people in different directions because the defendants realize that the courtroom is a state, the courtroom is an avenue of political theater, and that there are ways in which you can use the courtroom to reach a far wider audience than otherwise. And I think that, you know, there's always been kind of significant, important trials. But I'm hard pressed to think of one where the courtroom was used so effectively to convey the message that the defendants wanted.
Hannah McCarthy:
And as far as law and policy goes, I asked Victor good about this. And he said, you know what? No, no laws changed following the riots or the case. But he also brought the whole thing back to the reason these eight men ended up in court to begin with protest whether they were allowed to do it, where they were allowed to do it, and how they were allowed to do it.
Victor Goode:
What it did do is it caused other courts and other jurisdictions to say, well, look, maybe we need to apply this concept of time, place and manner and where your demonstrations can take place in a more balanced way. So we don't use these permits to create conflict and to create a situation where there is police abuse. Instead, let's try to allow the First Amendment to have its flowering and to have its space.
Nick Capodice:
So this is the last thing, Hannah And we haven't actually called it out up until this point. You got thousands of young, angry protesters taken to the streets because of their dissatisfaction with violence, with government, brutal police violence, questions about constitutional rights, a massive divide in a party. So many of the events and problems that led to the Chicago seven eight trial are happening in America today, over 50 years later. So did we actually learn anything from the wildness and spectacle and violence of the 1960s or of this trial? Or I guess can we learn anything looking back at it today?
Hannah McCarthy:
It's funny you should ask. Victor and I had this moment at the end of the interview when we were speaking about constitutional rights, about the government's role in upholding them, about our role and making sure the government does. And per usual, Nick, when I talk about the weight of fundamental rights, I get a little bit overwhelmed. It really means something to me. I feel it on a deep level. And when I mentioned this to Victor. He essentially said, well, that's pretty much the whole point. That was the point in 1968 and that is the point now.
Victor Goode:
This is something that we have to feel. We have to not just think about it, we have to feel it. Because when you feel it, it makes it real. It causes you to look around at things a little bit differently than you might have before. My experience in 1968, both in campus protests and demonstrations and being part of antiwar demonstrations and movements. Caused me to change my career approach when I went to law school. I joined the organization called the National Conference of Black Lawyers, and I joined them because their declaration of commitment was to be the legal arm of the Black Revolutionary Movement. I didn't know where to go. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what my life was going to become. But I knew that I wanted my life to become a life of meaning. I knew I wanted to have something to do with social justice. I knew I couldn't go back to the world that my parents grew up in. I knew that being a lawyer could be a tool in some ways. And of course, as a lawyer, I quickly learned the limitations of that tool as well. But I hope, as some young people hear this podcast and many, many others, many, many others, I don't I don't claim to be unique in that respect that they will begin to ask some of the same questions of who am I and where are we going? As I began to ask in 1968 and let me underscore that not just who am I and where am I going, but who am I and where are we going?
Hannah McCarthy:
That does it for the Chicago seven and eight eight here on Civics 101. Special thanks to the American Bar Association for working with us on this series. If you want a good dramatization of the trial of the Chicago Seven, Nic and I watched the Aaron Sorkin movie of the same name. And although Jeet here will rightfully tell you that he did indeed ninety's Sorkin ize the series of events behind the trial of the Chicago Seven. It's still a pretty good movie, and it's got Mark Rylance in it, which should be argument enough. This episode was produced by me and McCarthy with help from Nick Capodice. Kristina Phillips is our senior producer. Jackie Fulton is our producer. Rebecca Lovejoy is our executive producer. If you like this episode, please consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. It actually means a lot to us and it's how you can tell us what you think. Music In this episode by Viscid, Lars Eriksson, Ketsa, Ian Luxton, Vincent Vega, Anemoia, Blacktop Banks and Elliot Holmes. You can get transcripts, additional resources in everything else we have ever made at our website civics101podcast.org. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.
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