A spate of mass gun killings, the death of two African American men in recent weeks at the hands of police, the murder of five police officers by a sniper during a demonstration and then three more by a lone gun man in Baton Rouge, terrorism here and abroad, involvement overseas in intractable conflicts, growing economic inequality — none of these developments quite parallel the tumultuous events of the 1960s. But the situation was volatile then, and it’s volatile now.
To set the scene, thanks to the TV News Archive, the Internet Archive‘s online free library of TV news clips, revisiting some of the more “crazy” conventions of years past (headline by Politico), or simply buy sales lead notable or controversial moments, is just a search away. All of these clips are editable, embeddable, and shareable on social media.
1968, it was in the shadow of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Democratic primary candidate Robert Kennedy. Vice President Hubert Humphrey had the support of the some 60 percent of the delegates, largely local party leaders — people who would be super delegates today. While a liberal, Humphrey’s support of the war as Lyndon B. Johnson’s vice president made him unpopular in the anti-war movement.
As described by Politico, “With Humphrey’s nomination all but certain, protesters associated with the Youth International Party (the Yippies) and National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (the MOBE) took to the streets outside Chicago’s convention hall; inside, city policemen allied with the local political machine roughed up liberal delegates and journalists in plain view of news cameras. “I wasn’t sentenced and sent here!” a prominent New York Democrat bellowed as a uniformed officer dragged him off the floor. “I was elected.