{"id":1481,"date":"2008-08-24T08:22:00","date_gmt":"2008-08-24T08:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2008\/08\/24\/1968-2008-forty\/"},"modified":"2016-05-11T10:12:16","modified_gmt":"2016-05-11T17:12:16","slug":"1968-2008-forty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2008\/08\/24\/1968-2008-forty\/","title":{"rendered":"1968-2008 FORTY YEARS SINCE THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION IN CHICAGO AND I WAS THERE"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"68chicago\"<\/a> There they are.\u00a0 While this was happening in front of the Chicago Hilton\u00a0 I was first in the streets and then, as I’ve written before<\/a>, upstairs helping to convert our McCarthy Campaign<\/a> floor of rooms into a hospital.\u00a0 \u00a0The entire hotel reeked of the tear gas outside; everyone was scared, and angry, and sad.\u00a0 I’ve told this story before, but it’s one day before the 2008 Democratic Convention — people are streaming into Denver, picking up their credentials, getting ready for welcome parties and scamming invitations… all forty years after this landmark in my life\u00a0 and so many others.\u00a0 Just take a look so you understand why these memories refuse to die.\u00a0 And consider that the belief in Barack Obama today, which so many equate with the impact of John Kennedy, is also much like the hope engendered in us in those days.\u00a0 I suspect it’s where a lot of the boomer support for Obama<\/a> began. <\/object><\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

I wonder if you can imagine what it felt like<\/a> to be 22 years old, totally idealistic and what they call “a true believer” and to see policemen behave like that.\u00a0 To see Chicago Mayor Richard Daley<\/a> call the first Jewish Senator, Abraham Ribicoff<\/a> of Connecticut, a “kike” (you had to read his lips – there was no audio but it was pretty clear) and to see your friends, and colleagues, and some-time beloveds with black eyes and bleeding scalps.\u00a0 To be dragged by a Secret Service agent from your place next to Senator McCarthy<\/a> by the collar of your dress as he addressed the demonstrators, battered, bruised and angry. To see everything you’d worked for and believed in decimated in the class, generational and political warfare.<\/p>\n

That’s how it was.\u00a0 I’ve been thinking about it a lot, of\u00a0course, on this momentous anniversary – when hopefully another, happier\u00a0landmark will emerge in the extraordinary nomination of Senator Obama.\u00a0I’ve been to every Convention from 1968 until this year.\u00a0 It’s kind of\u00a0sad to break the chain after 40 years but I think I’m ready.\u00a0 I did a\u00a0workshop on convention coverage at the BlogHer conference<\/a> to pass the torch;\u00a0I’m so excited for all the women who are going.\u00a0 Just as Senator Obama\u00a0is a generation behind me – in his 40s to my 60s – a little kid when we\u00a0faced billy clubs and tear gas in his home town, so are many of the\u00a0bloggers credentialed to cover the week.\u00a0 I know it will be great for\u00a0them and that they’ll make certain we know – in twitteriffic detail<\/a>, what’s going on.<\/p>\n

I know too that, 40 years from now, it will still be a milestone
\nmemory in their lives.\u00a0 \u00a0 I started to write “hopefully, a happier one”
\nbut despite all the agony of those terrible days in 1968, I’m embarrassed to tell you that I wouldn’t\u00a0trade the memory.\u00a0 It’s so deep in my soul and so much a part of my\u00a0understanding of myself and who I’ve become that despite the horrors within it, I cherish its presence.\u00a0 So, what I wish my sisters in Denver\u00a0(and Minnesota) is to have conventions — happy or not — as important\u00a0to their lives, sense of history and purpose and political values as Chicago was to mine.\u00a0 Along with, of course, the fervent hope that this time, there will be something closer to a happy ending.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There they are.\u00a0 While this was happening in front of the Chicago Hilton\u00a0 I was first in the streets and then, as I’ve written before, upstairs helping to convert our McCarthy Campaign floor of rooms into a hospital.\u00a0 \u00a0The entire hotel reeked of the tear gas outside; everyone was scared, and angry, and sad.\u00a0 I’ve … Continue reading 1968-2008 FORTY YEARS SINCE THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION IN CHICAGO AND I WAS THERE<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,3,4,27,7,9,97],"tags":[3413,1299,1305,1306,1300,1301,1304,90,92,1302,21,1303],"class_list":["post-1481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2","category-aging","category-baby-boom","category-current-affairs","category-life","category-politics","category-television","tag-3413","tag-2008-presidentail-campaign","tag-abraham-ribicoff","tag-chicago-convention","tag-democratic-convention","tag-denver","tag-eugene-mccarthy","tag-history","tag-obama","tag-police-riot","tag-politics-2","tag-richard-daley"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-nT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1481"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4431,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1481\/revisions\/4431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}