1968 Redux: Islanders at the Chicago convention reflect on then and now

It is safe to say that many people here on the Island will be riveted next week, with the Democratic National Convention in Chicago where Vice President Kamala Harris is poised to accept the nomination and face Donald Trump in the November election. Our advice: Buckle up. The wild roller-coaster ride in American politics over the past month may have a few more harrowing twists and turns.

Not since 1968 has America been so convulsed by politics and violence, and so deeply fractured as a country. So that has us wondering, Is the current moment in American politics is 1968, redux? It certainly feels that way, with some obvious similarities between 1968 and 2024. First, both party conventions occurred in Chicago amid a backdrop of political violence and student unrest over foreign wars, and all that occurred amid the turmoil as an unpopular incumbent Democrat was pushed to step aside and clear the way for a new candidate late in the campaign cycle. 

But as we have learned, there are also profound differences between then and now. 

We are lucky to have a number of longtime Island residents who remember the searing year of 1968 like it was yesterday. In this week’s editorial page, we are sharing an interview with Phyllis Segal, who was there in 1968 in Chicago. She was staying at the Hilton Hotel, the scene of violent clashes between Mayor Daley’s aggressive Chicago Police Department and an unruly group of student protesters who were not willing to back down to threats and thuggery. 

As the DNC in Chicago gets underway, we will also hear from two other legendary Islanders who were in Chicago in 1968 — Rose Styron and Geoff Cowan. Styron is a lifelong human rights activist and the widow of the author William Styron, and author of a recent memoir, “Beyond the Harbor”; Cowan is the former head of the Voice of America and a dean emeritus at the USC Annenberg School of Communication, who is in Chicago again this year with his current students. Stay tuned for reflections from Styron and Cowan. 

If you yourself are an Islander who was there back in 1968 and would like to offer your thoughts, please write a letter to the editor and, if you can, please send a photo of yourself from back in 1968, and one from today. We will do our best to publish these online and in print.

Here are a few excerpts of my recent Q and A with Phyllis Segal, a resident of Tisbury and a longtime activist who, along with her late husband Eli Segal, has fought the good fight on behalf of social justice. A former vice president of Encore, she now serves as senior fellow advancing intergenerational national service. 

What was it like in Chicago in 1968, and what role did you play there?

I was there because I worked for Rep. Don Edwards, the first member of Congress to endorse Gene McCarthy. Also because my husband Eli was McCarthy’s director of “nonprimary states.” In addition, I was three months pregnant with our first child, so cautious about going to Grant Park. But I was at the Hilton Hotel when, as the police were assaulting demonstrators, panicked people crashed through the hotel’s window. Inside, we were panicked too. And disbelieving.

Since 1968, I’ve been at many nominating conventions — DNC and RNC — in different roles including on the Democratic Convention floor as a delegate (1984), and other years as a women’s rights advocate on platform issues, and representing delegate challengers. In some years I was there simply as a guest. It was always an exhilarating and heady experience, but two times stand out: I was on the convention floor voting when Gerry Ferraro was nominated as VP in 1984, and in the gallery watching when Hillary Clinton was nominated as president in 2016. 

What lessons does the convention of 1968 offer for 2024? 

The lesson learned is that protestors need to be heard, and dissenters respected, just without disrupting the business of the convention or the prospects of a successful general election. More nuanced, and complicated to explain, are lessons about how delegates are selected. In 1968, people elected as delegates because they opposed the war in Vietnam were a minority unable to influence the nomination of the party’s candidate for president. But they (and antiwar advocates) were able to spark a process for reforms to allow “full, meaningful, and timely participation” by Democrats in delegate selection. Over the years, this reform has morphed into primaries dominating delegate selection, which has skewed who is successful. As a result, after this convention we can predict a reprise in reforming the delegate selection process. 

Charles M. Sennott is the publisher of The MV Times, and the founder and editor-in-chief of the GroundTruth Project, a nonprofit news organization that is home to the national service program Report for America.