News Archive

By Professor Lawrence A. Jegen, III

During August, 1968, I had been in Indianapolis, teaching at Indiana University for exactly six years and two individuals from Evansville, Indiana had been denied seating (for voting and other participation) at the August 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and their lawyer asked me to argue their cases before the 1968 Democratic Credential Committee, which was meeting in Chicago in the Congress Hotel on Michigan Avenue. I agreed to do that and as I came out of the subway exit on Michigan Avenue, I found myself in the middle of the riots going on in Grant Park and on Michigan Avenue by an estimated 16,000 individuals plus the Chicago police.

Not fully knowing what was going on, I pushed my way south to enter the Congress Hotel. However, when I paused walking and looked at what was going on, I noticed that if a rioter even looked at a policemen, the rioter was hit with a Billie Club and promptly put into one of the Paddy wagons which were lined up along Grant Park and Michigan Avenue. Apparently, these riots were caused by 1,000's of individuals, but some of the suspected primary leaders were the Chicago eight: Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Bellinger, Rennie Davis, Tom Hayden, John Froines, Lee Weiner, and Bobby Seal.

Some of you may remember that preceding the August 1968 Democratic Convention, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968 and Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated on June 6, 1968. During the Democratic Convention, Richard Daly (Sr.) was the Mayor of Chicago, Lyndon Johnson was the President of the United State, and Ramsey Clark was the Attorney General of the United States.

After the 1968 Chicago Convention, a federal grand jury began meeting to determine whether or not the Chicago eight should be indicted for various federal crimes. However, President Johnson and Ramsy Clark did not favor the indictments, so indictments were not handed down until 1969 when Richard Nixon became President of the United States and John Mitchell became Attorney General of the United States. Then, the Chicago eight were indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiracy to incite a riot and for other federal crimes and the group of eight were then charged with various federal crimes and during the subsequent legal proceedings, Bobby Seal was granted a separate trial, and thus, the Chicago eight became the Chicago seven.

In any event, during the midst of the 1968 Chicago riots, I pushed my way to the Congress Hotel and I found the hall in which the Democratic Credentials Committee was meeting and soon after that, I was called on, by Governor Hughes of New Jersey, to present my arguments for the two disenfranchised individuals and after I made my arguments, I thought that I did very very well. In fact, when I finished, Governor Hughes came to my podium and stated to me “Professor Jegen, that was the finest argument and presentation that I have ever heard at a Credentials Committee meeting.” Thus, I really thought that I was a winner. So I asked Governor Hughes if he were going to vote for my clients and he stated, with a smile, “Absolutely not”.

That was over 45 years ago and I can remember it as though it were yesterday.