My Memories of the Riots in Chicago During the 1968 Democratic Convention

By James Scott Parker

(Originally written in 1994 and edited for publishing ahead of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago)

1968

Twenty-six years ago, I walked out of the Grand Jury in disgust. I had been called to testify on what I had seen on the streets of Chicago during the Democratic Convention. An elderly man asked me if I had seen any clubs. “Sure,” I said, “all kinds of clubs.” And we were off in separate directions. Apparently, a previous witness was talking about clubs you hit people with, and I was talking about motorcycle clubs. After twenty minutes of confusing questions, I finally asked what kind of clubs they were talking about. I was dismissed.

Leaving with my package of notes and “underground” papers, which I had refused to turn over to the FBI, I walked over to State Street and ordered a hot dog and Coke. One bite later, I looked down to discover the package was gone. This story is from memory.

After graduating from IWU in 1963, my Ward Committeeman, John C. Marcin, who was also the City Clerk, got me a job in the City Council Division of his office. I was kind of a page during council meetings, but it was thrilling to get to know Mayor Richard J. Daley.

It was the Mayor who, later in 1968, stopped me in the hall and asked if I would go out in the park and keep my eyes open. I wound up doing much more, eventually leading the march to the Polish Embassy, helping Abby Hoffman get arrested (his idea), and sitting in on the planning sessions of the so-called hippie leadership.

But to do justice to writing from memory, I must draw the picture, not only for you but for me, an environmental freak spying. I was torn between my devotion to Mayor Daley and the many, mostly good kids who came to Chicago in innocence.

On the Saturday before the Convention, I drove my 250 Yamaha dirt bike down to the Lincoln Park Field House, where my old and dear friend, Chuck Valorz, was the Park Director.

At about 10:00 in the morning, there were already about 500 people wandering around or practicing “snake lines.” Later, I learned snake lines were the idea of a guy named Shelly to penetrate police defenses. Chuck was in a meeting with several policemen, and when they came out of his office, he introduced me to Commander Riorden (spelling may be wrong).

Riorden said that because most of his undercover officers were probably already identified by the hippie leaders, would I mind staying in the park for the day and reporting back later. I said “OK,” and he wrote a note on a piece of scrap paper, “Pass this man, Number 1,” and initialed it.

Later on Wednesday night, that note probably saved my life, or at least protected me from getting kicked and beaten. It was the melee I started. Another officer in the Field House whispered something in the Commander’s ear. Then the Commander said, “Jim, maybe you can do us a favor before you go in the park. There’s a movie theater on South Halsted near 33rd Street where there’s going to be a meeting in the basement at noon. It’s a group from the Communist Party. Just go and see what they are planning.”

I got on my cycle and took off. I had many strange feelings of anticipation until I reached the theater. The show was closed for movies, but the front doors were open, and inside, behind the stage, were some men playing cards. “The meeting is in the basement,” they said, so I found my way downstairs, where the room was set up. There were stacks of newspapers printed by the California underground press. Also, on the seats were some tracts from socialists and other left-wing flyers. On the table was a guitar. No one was there.

I walked to the back of the building through a long tunnel and found a ladder up to a trap door. Outside was a fence and the alley. My mind raced on what I should do, and I decided to steal the guitar along with copies of all the papers.

Back upstairs, the men were still playing cards. “Did you find them?”

“No, but I’ll be back in a few minutes,” and I drove the bike around the back for the getaway from the trap door. It wasn’t easy carrying all those papers and the guitar on a motorcycle, but I took them home and then went back to the park.

There was talk that the National Guard was mobilizing at the Chicago Avenue Armory, so I took a ride over there. I should tell you that when I went home, I dressed up to fit in. I wore a T-shirt that said on the back, “Our Rock is Spock.” I think that Dr. Spock, the baby book writer, had taken the anti-war position. Yeah, that must be it. But anyhow, I also had a medallion that had a picture of Bobby Kennedy on one side and Martin Luther King on the other. I magic markered a “V” on my white helmet.

On Chicago Avenue, east of Michigan, there was a line of jeeps loaded with uniformed National Guard troops. TV cameras were going, so I just sat for a few minutes till they noticed me, and then I sped east to the Drive, back again, and then back to the Drive. Some of the troops were yelling, and I caused a small commotion along the line. It was fun.

I went back to Lincoln Park and went out into the field where Shelly was teaching the snake dancing. After watching for a while, I noticed TV groups coming across the field. I laid down and shut my eyes to the glaring afternoon sun. After a few minutes, I opened my eyes, and to my wonderment, there were two or three cameras pointing down at me. “This is the kid on the cycle, right?” one of them asked. “Weren’t you just over at the Armory?” “What’s the symbol of Kennedy and King?” “Who sent you over there?” All sorts of questions. I was the main attraction in the midst of all those other people. It was amazing, only because they, the TV people, connected me with the troops at the Armory.

Over the years, I always hoped to see, in some documentary or news story, my speeding past those troops, but I never have.

When the cameras left, other kids started coming over, asking who I was and why they were filming me. Shelly stopped the snake dancing and came over. I said I was nobody special, but they didn’t believe it. “What do we do tonight?” “Where do we go?” “Who’s in charge?” All these kids were apprehensive and distrustful of the others they didn’t know.

Motorcycle gangs and hippies clashed, and other minor arguments among various ideologists occurred regularly. There was no unity in this camp, and all of them searched for leadership.

The word was out that the park would be closed at 9:00 p.m., and I encouraged the people I talked to to leave and find somewhere else in the city to stay. But around five o’clock, a small group showed up with a bullhorn. I hung with Shelly, and we stood with this group as they told the kids to stay in the park. Nothing would happen. Famous last words, I would say. That night was a disaster. I could lie and say I stayed, but at 7:00 p.m., I went back to the Field House. Chuck was still there with a few cops. They eyed me real good when I walked in, but Chuck cleared things up quickly. “Do not stay here tonight, Jim.” The orders were clear. No one stays in the park, and that was that. I told Chuck how I had become somewhat of a leader figure and how it happened. Then I left and went home. I went to bed without watching the news. I wanted an early start for the park Sunday morning.

Sunday, 9:00 a.m., the tear gas was still hanging in the bushes. My friend, Chuck, hadn’t shown up yet, so I cruised around the area. A few people were trickling back to the park from the nearby neighborhoods.

Although the rest of the week seems to be all in one day now, I’ll try to piece my memory together.

Sunday Morning

TV crews were all over, looking for the worst tales of horror. The best speakers were getting the most press, and perhaps some stories were fabricated, but there is no doubt that this event accomplished the opposite effect for which it was intended.

The police had unified not only the radical protesters but also radicalized the passive peaceniks into a single force. In the days to come, few would sit out a march. “Off the Pigs.” The underground paper that was being sold had a big colorful front page of a pig dressed in a police uniform. A real pig was brought into the park, and “pig” was to be the war cry from then on. “Kill the Pig.”

The group which later became known as the Chicago Seven began organizing the crowd, and as a semi-leader from knowing Shelly, I was made a marshal, which entitled me to wear a black armband. I became the shuttle for Abby Hoffman.

Abby was a peacenik. I met Abby Hoffman sometime that afternoon and found him to be a person not seeking confrontation. Of the leaders, he was the only one who trusted me. Over the next few days, he would ride on the back of my bike on three occasions, which also just plain gave me the thrill of my life.

Others were not advocating peace any longer. If I were asked now who was most responsible for the clash that was to take place Wednesday night in front of the Hilton, I would say Dick Gregory.

My daily log, long gone, I can only put Monday and Tuesday in a package. I was on Wells Street one of those nights where I vividly recall seeing a photographer starting his own small fire with some crumpled paper and taking a picture through the smoke of a group of kids in the street. That photo was in the papers the next day, captioned something like “Hippies Set Wells Street Ablaze.”

Small detail, that in the years since 1963, I had become an organizer in my own right, for mostly environmental concerns. I had organized many protests and had angered my committeeman, John Marcin. He fired me in 1965, so I was now working in the Bureau of Electricity on the personal patronage of the Mayor. But without a committeeman sponsor, which I promised the Mayor I would get, I knew I was on thin ice. Alderman Laurino, 39th Ward, gave me a precinct to work and a sponsorship letter, but Marcin was still doggedly trying to prove that he could get rid of me. Nevertheless, the Commissioner of the Bureau of Elect, John Kelly, called my home on Monday and said I had better be at work on Tuesday or the job was over.

Tuesday

I wore a suit and went to work at 320 N. Clark Street, parking my cycle below the building and locking it with a large chain that I kept around the seat. I went in to see Mr. Kelly, and to my surprise, he was no longer angry. The Mayor had sent around a memo for “volunteers” to work the hotels to keep the delegates happy. I told him how the Mayor had informally asked me to help, and I was let go for the rest of the week to be a host. Ha! Straight back to the park I went, where I stopped in to see Chuck. The Commander was there, and I briefed him on my leadership status.

“Good man, Jim, now get out there. We hear something big is in the works.”

It was noon. Abby met me near where a group of about three or four hundred had gathered.

“Jim, we need someone to lead the march on the Polish Embassy.”

This recollection is like it happened yesterday. Whether this story ever gets printed or not, it’s a memory that I can draw from my mind at will.

There I was in a moment of history that many would just as soon forget; dressed in a suit with that big chain around my waist and over one shoulder. The chain everyone thought was a symbol of being in chains. I don’t even recall why I put it on. The plan was that because the Russians had only a day or so before brought tanks up to the borders of Poland and were threatening invasion, the Polish people of Chicago would cheer us for marching on the Polish government, which was then Communist. With this sympathy, the group could then march the next day to the Amphitheater at 39th and Halsted through Polish neighborhoods without fear of the people trying to stop them.

It sounded far-fetched, but I didn’t think of the plan, and at the time, well, who cared? The Embassy was only a few blocks south of Lincoln Park where we were. The only danger was crossing LaSalle Drive, the bridle path barricaded, with such a large group. I was then introduced as the one who would lead the march.

I started out alone, but soon the crowd began following. There was a line of police at LaSalle, and there were no smiles on their faces. Being fifty yards ahead of the rest of the group was a lucky break. I was confronted by a lieutenant who said the group would be stopped at LaSalle. I quickly showed him my note and explained that I would take the group halfway down the block to the Embassy, turn around, and come back. His decision was quick, and the police immediately formed an opening across the drive, stopping traffic. I could hear the cheers behind me. After two days of constant confrontation, this was the first sign that there could be cooperation. I learned later that some of the leaders had planned this for another riot. A guy known only as Wolf said I had botched a plan that was made for national television. Be that as it may, I was supposed to be a scapegoat, but instead, at least in my own mind, I spared many kids from more agony.

We marched up the street. Sure, everyone was yelling “Pigs” as we went, but it was a peaceful march. In front of the Embassy, everyone yelled, “Russian go home,” “Pull back your tanks,” and then I began walking back toward the park; the group followed.

At LaSalle Drive, the Lieutenant, with his hands at his side, smiled. While my group was marching, almost everyone else had left for the band shell across from the Field Museum. We were to go there in small groups. I returned to the field house. When I walked in, there were pats on the back and “Good job.” It could have been a mess. I was asked to go to the band shell. When I got there, I found out that a rally was planned for Wednesday morning, across from the Hilton. The leaders would meet on the hill to the south. I went to my night job at Zenith Corp.

Well, I had to have a night job. I had six or seven children at the time. The boss wasn’t happy that I had missed Monday, but I assured him that I’d be in the rest of the week. I was a screen room technician, putting colored dots on TV tubes. It gave me time to write about the events that happened. I did plan on showing up on Wednesday, but I didn’t.

Wednesday

This is the last day for me, and the last day for many others; most memorable for many reasons.

A crowd had already gathered across from the Hilton. A guy named Oats was strumming his guitar and singing under a tree. I think he was standing on a makeshift podium. It was 9:00 a.m.

I had given Abby Hoffman a few rides the previous day, so he knew me and asked if I still had my Magic Marker. He asked me to print the “F” word on his forehead and then left. A short time later, it was announced that he was arrested. This angered the crowd. It was learned later the arrest was a misdemeanor profanity charge, and he was back at noon.

Speeches were going on between the music. Finally, Dick Gregory got up and announced that his house was at 47th and Michigan and no one could stop him from inviting everyone over for lunch. Hoffman spoke last, and the gist of his short talk went something like this: “There may be trouble on the march, you don’t have to go. If you’d rather, stay here in the park. Make love.” With that, the group followed Gregory south on Michigan Avenue. I went for my bike and soon was out in front of the marchers. I drove a few blocks ahead and saw that at about 18th Street there was a large military vehicle blocking the width of Michigan Avenue. It looked like one of those half-track amphibious landing craft. It was filled with soldiers.

I drove to within half a block, and from the police line came a black police Captain toward me. I drove up to him; he must have known me because he didn’t question me, only asked what the marchers plans were. I told him and asked him to let the march go on, at least till they reached 43rd or 47th, where he could say, “OK, we let you march to Gregory’s house.” Perhaps the real plan would have been to turn west to Halsted, but even so, by then the group could have been stopped elsewhere, and they’d be all spread out. The Captain said, “We have our orders to hold them here.”

I rode along with him slowly back to 18th and saw the jeeps parked behind the half-track. To the right was a large open-back truck with some TV people. Behind them were several of the leaders of the demonstrations, including Abby Hoffman. “Set Up!” Whatever was to soon occur, the leadership was safe. I write that with tongue in cheek.

The crowd came closer, and I pulled off to the sidewalk and parked. As Gregory went by, I yelled to him to stop, knowing I was wasting my breath. As the marchers came within half a block of 18th Street, four jeeps came from behind the half-track. Each jeep had a screen mesh fencing on the front, and at first, I thought they were just going to line up side by side to block Michigan. I was wrong. The jeeps very slowly moved toward the marchers. A loudspeaker blasted, “Turn back, you cannot proceed.” When the marchers and the jeeps were about 25 feet apart, smoke started coming from the front of the jeeps. It was tear gas. The front row of marchers got it the worst, but a steady wind blowing north caused the gas to travel fast. The handkerchief to my face didn’t help; my eyes were burning, and as I started driving north on the sidewalk, I found a girl screaming in pain. I told her to get on and drove her to a fountain back in the park. She was wearing contacts. I made several more trips and picked up whoever seemed to be in bad shape, but the wind had picked up, and the gas was heading toward the Loop like a giant cloud. I drove back as far as Congress, where a driver in a convertible had been affected by the gas and was just sitting there crying. Another car had run up on the curb, and several others were about to be abandoned by their drivers.

The only thing I could do was drive back and forth, urging the drivers to use all the lanes on Michigan going north. When the traffic was cleared, I drove over to the band shell, where many of the marchers had fled to. The march was stopped, but the gas lingered and floated into the Loop. The Mayor took some heat on this one, and perhaps if you knew him, you would understand his anguish.

No one in my lifetime loved Chicago the way Mayor Daley did. I remember meeting him one morning on Clark Street back in ’64. He was coming from St. Peter’s, where he stopped every morning before walking to the Hall. He was with one of his sons and invited me into Maxim’s for breakfast. The whole conversation was about the city. He seemed to know every side street, let alone every neighborhood. I sat in awe as he asked me to help make Chicago a better city. For those few years, I sat in on every council meeting. I suppose one could almost say that he considered Chicago his domain. I thought so, anyhow.

Did I make myself clear? If you didn’t live in Chicago in 1968 and only saw what was on TV, then you couldn’t know. Four years later, I would be in an SCLC tent in Miami Beach, Flamingo Park, for the ’72 Convention, where the kids were bored stiff. I saw Abby for the last time. He was wearing delegate credentials.

Everyone was soon at the band shell, and the perimeter was surrounded by police and the National Guard. I drove my bike over a footbridge to Michigan Avenue. National Guard troops were shoulder to shoulder on the street along the east curb bordering the park. Cocky was me, as I drove the sidewalk north to the Hilton. I could sense hatred, but not one soldier made a motion toward me. At the corner, another police lieutenant, I think his name was Kelly too, walked over to me. He told me that the police had set up a headquarters just on the west side of Columbus Drive, across from the band shell. If I should learn anything about the evening’s plans, I should go there right away.

Imagine, if you will, I am on the only motor vehicle of any kind driving anywhere I please. What a feeling!

I think that it’s important at some point to tell you how my head got here, not just my body. I mentioned my environmental concerns, but other involvements also made me a participator.

In 1967, I led the first march to support the servicemen in Vietnam. I was teaching a teen Sunday School class at my church, and one Saturday morning, I took the kids down to State Street with signs supporting the servicemen. Our group appeared the next day on the front page of the Sun-Times, walking amidst the anti-war protesters.

On St. Patrick’s Day of the same year, my children dressed as leprechauns were on the front page of the Daily News. Maybe I enjoyed getting the publicity, but I know the marches were me. Other protests I had organized in those years were to ban phosphates in detergents, clean the Chicago River, and march on CBS for firing their environmental newscaster. We marched on the Edison Plant at California and Addison three times for burning coal; on the Board of Education many times for many reasons. I printed and distributed an underground newsletter to the employees at the Board building, which was just across the river from 320 N. Clark. I also paid lawyers to file an age discrimination suit because, at the time, Board members had to be over 25 years old.

I was elected secretary of the Illinois Democratic Women’s Caucus, promoting their involvement in government. I was elected secretary of the North River Commission and President of my neighborhood organization. Our family was nominated for Volunteers of the Year by the Joint Board for Long Term Care for entertaining at nursing homes and halfway houses. I, along with the legendary Fox, formed the North Branch Coalition to clean the Chicago River.

Stopping the cross-town expressway was my idea, and I pushed it through the Board of CAP, then led by Father Dubi. CAP started out as Campaign Against Pollution and became the Citizens Action Program.

At one lecture at Southern Illinois University, pollution turned to politics, and the students there soon became a political force in Carbondale, Illinois.

I regret the Edison marches because they used us as an excuse to go nuclear. I regret stopping the cross-town for stalemating the city’s expressways. There were cleanups, marches, and protests of all kinds. I was involved. It was the ’60s, and each event was exciting.

Back at the band shell, people were still wiping their eyes. The group grew larger as the stragglers wandered back. I walked around the back of the stage and found six or seven of the leaders sitting in a circle. Distrust prevailed against me, but I sat in on the meeting anyway.

The sun was now going down, and the consideration was how to get everyone out of the park over to the Hilton without starting a riot. It was decided that a smaller group would march north to Buckingham Fountain for a splash-in, which would show the police that the kids were starting to do a fun thing. Wherever a break occurred in the defense to cover that march, the rest would take that route and proceed west on Congress instead of east to the Fountain. I left the group and biked over to the Fountain, then back south to Columbus to where the police had set up their headquarters.

The last few days had left me with mixed emotions, to say the least. I had made friends, and I had seen them hurt. But I also could picture the leaders standing on the truck out of harm’s way when the gas attack took place. The overriding thought in my mind was that the demonstrators had been used.

I pulled into the drive and was immediately thrown off my bike and pinned to the ground by several policemen. Cuffs were put on in haste behind my back. I screamed for them to reach into my back pocket for the note, and when they found it, I was taken inside the headquarters, a shed-like structure, where the commander was looking over a large map of the area. “Take off those cuffs,” he screamed, “He’s one of ours.” The policemen apologized for their roughness, and I said that I understood, but I didn’t. It was my first feeling of fear.

In the parking area were several buses filled with police. A few were rocking from side to side from the anticipated confrontation. I explained what the plan was, got back on my bike, drove over the footbridge, and parked atop the Logan hill.

From there, I could see the groups starting to march toward Congress. The buses were pulling out; I knew that I should stay put, but instead, I drove down to the Hilton. A police line was ten deep at Wabash; the buses had not arrived yet. A few of the leaders were already in the park, and when I pulled up, they pointed to a black Cadillac parked across the street.

It was Tom Keene’s car, and they planned to go after him when he came out of the hotel. Tom Keene was the Alderman in charge of the Finance Committee, probably the most powerful Chicago politician after the Mayor. The crowd was coming toward the park, and I drove west, straight toward the police line down the block. The batons went up, but then one officer yelled, “Let him pass.” I stopped and told him to get Keene out of there before the crowd came. He sent some men into the hotel; Tom came out, and the car pulled away. I told the Alderman a few years later, and he thanked me. Big deal! As the crowd arrived, I stayed behind the police line, which had begun to move forward. The clash came right in the middle of the intersection on Michigan Avenue. The rest was on television.

In ’72, the kids went skinny dipping.

I’ve told this story over the years, but now with the Democratic Convention coming back to Chicago, I think it’s timely and of some historic significance.

Nevertheless, I try not to fool myself into believing that what I did was significant to what took place or the outcome. It was unique, however, in that I had the opportunity to witness an infamous event from the inside on both sides.

I’m writing this more for my children and grandchildren than for anyone else because I want them to know that before I worked for a Congressman for twenty years, I cared enough to get involved.

My Thoughts on Why the 1968 Riots Took Place

As I sit here on my new pontoon in Eagle River, Wisconsin.

Blah, blah, blah, the morning sun on the lake, crows singing, fish jumping, the reflections of birds and lily pads.

The reflections.

Hubert Humphrey became “Dump the Hump.” Probably the one man that, in 1968, was most in tune with the liberalism of the day. Why on earth would he be the target of the antiwar people? True, Lyndon Johnson prolonged the war, but was Nixon the liberal’s choice over Humphrey?

As I said previously, I went to Miami Beach for the ’72 Democratic Convention. I still worked in the Bureau of Electricity. A few days after the ’68 Convention ended, FBI agents came up to the office to get me for testimony. Four years later, the office staff chipped in and bought me a one-way ticket to Florida.

I took along five hundred Xerox copies of Mike Royko’s article on why Mayor Daley should be the delegate and not Bill Singer. Daley and his delegates were thrown out of the convention on the first day.

When I arrived, I went straight to Flamingo Park, where I took residence in a Southern Christian Leadership tent. The next morning, when I woke up, a beautiful girl came out of the tent next to mine. TV people were walking around the camp, and when they got close, she lifted her sweater and exposed her breasts and started yelling, “We’re for McGovern.”

Naturally, I asked her why she had done what she had done. She told me that she worked in a strip joint, and a few nights earlier, some men offered her enough money to come stay at the park and pose for the cameras. But that wasn’t all. They had also paid for her to stay the rest of the week at a small two-story motel on the oceanfront, near the hotel that many Democratic meetings were taking place. She said that there might be a room available for me at eight dollars a day.

I went with her on the bus and rented a room on the second floor. I think I was the only man there, except for the desk clerk, who was not shy about telling me what was going on there. Across the hall from my room was another beautiful girl. Her room, unlike mine, was carpeted and decorated in plushness, if that’s the right word. She was married to a high-ranking Republican in Washington; I never learned her real name.

The next day, while I was by the desk downstairs, a car backed up to the front door. The desk clerk told me to watch when the two men opened the trunk. Inside was a carton, a paper box filled with money. Four or five girls passed by, and each one was given some. I later was told by the clerk that the girls were dating the conventioneers. I know that this all sounds weird, if not preposterous, but that’s what I saw happen. My friend from the park never came back to the motel.

Years later, when Nixon was exposed in Watergate, I again pondered the events that took place in Miami Beach, and I’ve come to this conclusion:

The Watergate people and their mentality for subversion in politics were active in the 1968 convention riots. The war may have been the catalyst, but there was money, and I believe it was theirs.

I suppose it would be hard for anyone, including myself, to find people who could now verify what I have just written. Perhaps the events are significant in my mind only.

One could, however, check if any employees are still working in the Bureau of Electricity from those years. I think Richy Stevens is still there. When I was elected secretary to the Illinois Democratic Women’s Caucus, Joanne Alter was chairman. She was later elected to the Sanitary District. Joe Cicero is still at the North River Commission, and Ralph Frese still owns the Chicagoland Canoe Base. I always thought that the black police captain on Michigan Avenue later became Police Commissioner, but I never was sure.

The Royko article must be on file from ’72, and the court must have a record of my summons to the Grand Jury in ‘68.

Abby Hoffman and Chuck Valorz are dead. I think Commissioner Kelly is still alive. Deborah Bracket from Channel 11 used to come to the CAP meetings. She used to call herself “DeeBee” Bracket.

The only other person that knew it was the Mayor who got me involved in all this for sure was former Congressman Frank Annunzio, who hired me in 1972 and whom I worked for for twenty years.

The other thing for sure is that 1995 will be a lot quieter in Chicago.

Oops! There goes my bobber.

Originally written in 1994 and edited for publishing ahead of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago