THE WORLD IS WATCHING Michael James (third from right) tries to tip over a police truck during the ’68 riots

What led you to protest?
James We [SDS] were opposed early on to [attending] the Democratic Convention, because we had this view of…being buried in the community, working with people face-to-face, bringing them around. By the time…the convention came to town, the mayor had refused to make any concessions to the legitimate concerns of the protestors…and we ended up going downtown to participate—what a polite word that is: participate.
Katz That spring, I’d…worked with Don to organize a demonstration in the wake of the King assassination and the burning of the West Side—the first time the Chicago police ever attacked demonstrators. Those [demonstrators] were very young people—grammar-school kids—and old people…
Peck …It was like, suburban dentists for peace.
Katz And they beat people into the subway. So I got very involved with the MOBE and my hundred pounds became the head of security.
Rose I had been, since the middle and late ’50s, involved in the campaign for nuclear disarmament and also for various civil-rights operations. I was Dr. King’s press secretary when he came to Chicago.…Then Rennie Davis [MOBE and SDS organizer, one of the Chicago Seven] and David Dellinger [MOBE chairman, one of the Chicago Seven] asked me if I would become the press secretary for the Mobilization Committee for the Chicago convention demonstrations.
Kurshan Dave Dellinger called Jerry Rubin [Yippie cofounder, one of the Chicago Seven], who was my partner, and asked if he would…help organize the 1967 demonstration at the Pentagon. When we came to New York, we encountered [Yippie cofounder] Abbie Hoffman and a whole other, larger scene. That Pentagon demonstration was a really important moment in the antiwar movement, but we hadn’t succeeded in ending the war. So we formed the Yippies and went to Chicago. And I think by then we were all revolutionaries…and opposed to the war and freaked out that the civil-rights movement hadn’t been more successful.
Peck I had a job as a textbook salesman in Chicago—the job went south because I drove the company car to the Pentagon demonstration. [Everyone laughs.] I became the editor of the Chicago Seed, which was the underground newspaper then. I wrote this letter to Paul [Krassner, publisher of The Realist], and instead of hearing back from Paul, I got Jerry Rubin in my living room—which had a black light and soap flakes on the floor because they glowed under the black light—telling me about this groovy festival they were going to have in August ’68.
Schultz I’m a Korean War veteran—I actually got [to Chicago] right after the war. There were almost no Korean War veterans [at the convention] except in the media and in the Democratic Party, and they were the ones who were running up the hill and bridges, trying to stop what the National Guard was doing. Actually, I think that I came to it really more from the literary, story point of view...by July, I was damn sure there’d be good stories.

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