Battleground Chicago: The Police and the 1968 Democratic National Convention

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Description

Did the police lose regulate of themselves in dealing with demonstrators throughout the 1968 Democratic National Convention? Or were they simply men who saw themselves as protecting their city from the forces of revolution? Kusch contends that Chicago’s police were more than unthinking thugs, that they had, in effect, change into a counterculture, even more so than the people they ended up attacking. From Polish and Irish working class backgrounds, these men felt they represented a time gone by, a different way of living. The world they found themselves in throughout August of 1968 used to be an almost alien environment. Analyzing interviews of men who were at the streets and examining in-depth their actions and the reasons at the back of them, Kusch challenges traditional thinking in this pivotal event.

As tv cameras rolled, and flash bulbs popped, young middle-class college kids were attacked by Chicago’s finest. For four days, police chased, bludgeoned, and kicked, not only the protesters, but innocent onlookers and dozens of media representatives. Going beyond stereotypes and addressing what went on at the back of the cameras, Kusch challenges the assumptions that the police rioted and that the violence used to be limited to a handful of individuals. These officers are revealed as real men, with families, lives, and fears. It used to be these fears―as much as their hatred of the antiwar movement and the people in it―that led to the violent showdown. This work tackles a turbulent period when presentation used to be key for all of the major players: the protesters, the media, and the police themselves.

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