Nancy Kurshan (second from left) burns judges’ robes in effigy in Chicago, February 1970.

What were you hoping to accomplish?
Rose It began as an anti–Democratic Party move. It was not that we were trying to “influence” the Democratic Party. The fear that we were not necessarily physically violent but destructive of what [the party was] about was quite correct. We were not demonstrators trying to say, “Look, give us health-care planks.” We didn’t want planks; we wanted to end the war.
James I remember really wanting to have a good time…to get the kids talking about the revolution and peace, the war…smoke some dope in the park. And [proto-punk band] the MC5 was playing. We did have a good time until the police came into Lincoln Park. That sent us into Old Town, breaking windows, hiding in gangways, police chasing us. And it was like, [we took] every chance we got to go back downtown to fuck them up.
Peck I wanted to manifest who I was. We were a group of people trying to live our lives in a peaceful, communal way. We were trying to demonstrate…that there was a better way of living in a culture of greed.

What did you accomplish?
Katz We have a congressional delegation that was forged out of ’68—Danny Davis, antiwar, civil rights; Luis Gutierrez, Young Lords; Jan Schakowsky, consumer and antiwar advocate. It was the ending, for better or for worse, of an illusion which all of us children of the ’50s grew up with—that the U.S. was a total democracy and that our foreign policy was benign. It changed the way power was shared and policy was forged in this country.
Kurshan I think that ’68…did make it more difficult for the U.S. to militarily move wherever it wanted in the world. Our goal was really to make sure that there wouldn’t be another Vietnam, and that we have not succeeded in doing, clearly. So on the one hand, I feel like we were able to put a brake on; on the other hand, we’re still dealing with the same nefariousness.
James What it accomplished was bringing people together. You have to take the whole city; you have to look at [antisegregationist] Al Raby and the demonstrations around the schools, and the Willis Wagons [portable classrooms reportedly used to perpetuate segregation], the emergence of the Black Panther Party and on to the election of Harold Washington. And now Obama.
Schultz It had an immense impact on the Democratic Party. The primary fight we’re having now is finally made possible by the changes that started in ’68—that whole idea of a popular election of a presidential nominee. The superdelegates were brought in to correct what they thought was an imbalance.

NEXT>>