One of the many excitements in the news during the late sixties was the “Chicago Seven” Trial. People read about this crazy trial and the outlandish events that took place in the courtroom from the defendants wearing judicial robes to crude names and accusations directed towards the Judge. Who could we possibly expect to act so unruly in a place of order and justice? Why, the “Chicago Seven” of course. The events that led up to this trial all began with Democratic Convention of 1968 which took place in Chicago, Illinois.
The Vietnam War was well on its way by the time the Democratic Convention of 1968 rolled around, and so were the anti-war protests. After the Tet Offensive in the spring of 1968 and the famous Broadcast of Walter Cronkite the American public had begun to lose trust in the plans of Lyndon Johnson for Vietnam, and was protesting for peace. The Democratic Convention was an important time and place for protestors to display their displeasure with the Vietnam War, as many important decisions were to be made.
The Chicago Seven was made up of radical protestors from two main groups, the MOBES (National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam) and the YIPPIES (Youth International Party). MOBE was the more politically focused of the two while the YIPPIES engaged in promoting an uninhibited lifestyle. Both groups made plans for the Convention which would take place in Chicago.
Planning for the Convention began as early as November 1967 with the “Resistance” at the University of Chicago. It was here that Rennie Davis, the national coordinator for MOBE, announced his intentions for Convention Week. The MOBES and YIPPIES met for the first time in 1968 to discuss their plans, and again on March fourth near Chicago. At this...
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verdict, and it what ways the constitutional rights of the defendants were
violated. I also found how Judge Hoffman could have handled the trial
better and what he had done wrong. Secondary source Edit Copy Delete
Parenthetical Reference
Citation Comments
Newspaper or Newswire
Web link "'Terrible Comprimise' Rapped by 'Chicago Seven' Defenders." The Daily Review 19
Feb. 1970: 5. Web. 16 Feb. 2010.
FreePdfViewer.aspx?topic=%e2%80%98Terrible+compromise%e2%80%99+rapped+by+%e2%80%9
8Chicago+Seven%e2%80%99+defenders&img=50371659&terms=Compromise&dpviewdate=02%2f1
8%2f2008&firstvisit=true>. This newspaper article was found through
NewspaperARCHIVE.com and I was able to get notes on how Judge Hoffman
handled the case poorly and mistakes that were made.
A very historic event and detailed story took place in Port Chicago, California. An election was held in wartime emergency on January 4, 1943 to whom the people chose Earl Warren for governor of California. Then on July 17, 1944, a huge explosion of two ammunition ships occurred at the Naval Ammunition Depot on the Sacramento River. A great amount of damage was done to this now destroyed base, which was originally a segregated unit. Two cargo ships were tied up at the wrecked pier and the number of sailors and ammunition handlers killed instantly varied from 200 to 320, with 202 being black sailors, depending on the resource. However, this blast was quick to be called a mutiny and legal matters were brought up almost immediately.
Justice was not served in the controversial nature of the Bernhard Goetz subway shooting trial. After shooting four black teenagers, Bernhard Goetz turned himself into the police in Concord, New Hampshire. He was denominated, “The Subway Vigilante”. This case was brought to court approximately two years later, where Bernhard Goetz would ultimately be voted guilty of one count of illegal firearms possession, and served just six months in jail. Following the trials, questions are still being asked if justice has been served.
The Casey Anthony case was one that captured the heart of thousands and made it to the headline of national TV talk shows, newspapers, radio stations and social media networks for months. The root of the case was due to a clash between the parental responsibilities, the expectations that went with being a parent, and the life that Casey Anthony wanted to have. The case was in respect to the discovering the cause of Casey’s two-year-old daughter, Caylee Marie Anthony’s, death; however the emphasis was placed on Casey and her futile lies, which resulted in a public outcry. The purpose of this essay is to delve into the public atmosphere and inquire about why the media and social media collectively attacked the case by uncovering the content of the case, the charges that were laid, and later dismissed, the “performers” of the trial and the publics reaction. It will further discuss how it defies universal ideologies and how the media represents this. The discussion of the complexities of the case and its connotations will incorporate Stuart Hall’s Representation and the Media, Robert Hariman’s Performing the Laws, What is Ideology by Terry Eagleton, The Body of the Condemned by Michael Foucault, and a number of news articles, which will reveal disparate ideas of representation in the media, and the role of the performers of the law and their effect on the understanding of the case.
One of the most important political issues of 1969 was the Vietnam War. Throughout this year many demonstrations took place to protest the war. For example, in...
As said by Governor George Ryan, “Since 1973, over 130 people have been released from death rows throughout the country due to evidence of their wrongful convictions.” With each of these wronged convictions, the victim who should rightfully be convicted was able to walk free and possibly continue to commit crimes. Many of these wronged convictions entail parts of conflict theory with them because the dominant group will view things that they believe are socially deviant as criminal. The example in class of the 1992 Chicago gang ordinance shows how the dominant group, the police force, viewed standing on a street corner as socially deviant and thus, labeled it criminal. In The Central Park Five, the five who were convicted were in Central Park late at night, which was socially deviant. Since there was crime that was committed that night, it was easy to take the socially deviant situation of the kids being in the park late at night, them being in the same place as the crime, and them all being non-white and the victim being white and turn the crime on them. At the start of the night, there were kids who were throwing rocks at cars and assaulting homeless people to the extent of smashing one with a beer bottle. Out of all of the kids who were in the park that night, when they all took off running, it didn’t matter which five were stopped and taken to the police station, as long as there were non-white and in the park that night they could have been one of the “central park five”. “Central park five” turns into a label knowing that regardless of who the kid was and their background, the officers involved were going to manipulate they into confessing to the crime and then end up being convicted. Crime today involves conflict theory and can
First, the city was run by Mayor Richard Daley, an old style political boss, who controlled the state Democratic Party system with unchallenged authority. Second, several groups planned to organize demonstrations against the war and called upon supporters to join them in Chicago for the convention. Finally, the Chicago convention became a symbolic forum for the conflict. Four main groups were the National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam, led by David Dillinger and Ronnie Davis; the Yippies, led by Jerry Rubin and Abby Hoffman who attempted to combine the counter Coulter life style of hippies with a political statement against war. Some McCarthy supporters also came to Chicago, despite the senator's warning to stay away.
One of the most violent protests of the Vietnam War took place in May of 1970 at Kent State University in Ohio. Protests were common across America during the war but this was by far the most violent. On May 4, l970 members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of Kent State University protesters, killing four and wounding nine of the Kent State students. The event triggered a nationwide student strike that caused many colleges and universities to shut down . This deeply divided the country politically and made ordinary citizens take notice of the protests that were taking place across the nation’s college campuses.
The increase in population due to the Great Migration led Chicago to be the nation’s fastest growing city. In the city, homicide rates increased dramatically. The nature of homicide among African Americans in Chicago changed when the traditional impulsive violence between young boys became family violence or fights with acquaintances. Essentially, the Southern African Americans who moved to northern cities for freedom still experienced discrimination in jobs and housing from whites living in the neighborhoods prior. Many of them became frustrated about this and proceeded to demonstrate that through violence. In result of the increased violence, juvenile courts were developed. To address the concerns of juvenile delinquency, Chicago initially advocated courts to punish them for the acts of violence. The courts were filled with cases of violence between races due to the increasing racial tensions in neighborhoods throughout Chicago. Often, racist comments would be made, or an African American would fight against segregation or speak out and there would be a fight. Acts of violence became more and more common throughout the city and the juvenile courts were only one way to attempt to solve it. In Standing at Armageddon: A Grassroots History of the Progressive Era, it is said that the violence in Chicago was “the
On October 21, 1967, Hoffman joined the opposition movement to the Vietnam War. Hoffman was able to convinced about 75,000 people to gathered in Washington D.C to protest against the vietnam war and people’s equality. Hoffman wanted to demonstrate being a big united group they were going to be able to make changes for everyone and for the better. Attempting to direct the message of creative energy and hope into a movement for social change. Hoffman knew what it was going to take to protest against something like the Vietnam War. he was going to need people who believed and who were willing to take
People from around the country came by any means necessary to support the march. One man from Chicago began rol...
Jackson, Kevin, and Eric Johnson. "McDonald v. Chicago (08-1521)." Legal Information Institute. Cornell Law School, 30 Mar. 2014. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
James A. Baldwin once said, “The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose” (BrainyQuote.com). In the 1960s, “the man” was youth across the country. The Vietnam war was in full force, and students across the country were in an outrage. Society needed an excuse to rebel against the boring and safe way of life they were used to; Vietnam gave them the excuse they needed. Teenagers from different universities came together and formed various organizations that protested the Vietnam war for many reasons. These reasons included protesting weapons and different tactics used in the war, and the reason the U.S. entered the war in the first place. These get-togethers had such a monumental impact on their way of life that it was famously named the Anti-War Movement. When the Vietnam War ended, The United States did not have a real concrete reason why; there were a bunch of theories about why the war ended. Through negative media attention and rebellious youth culture, the Anti-War Movement made a monumental impact in the ending of the Vietnam War.
The political and societal ramifications of Vietnam's Tet Offensive indubitably illustrate the historical oddity of 1968. 1967 had not been a bad year for most Americans. Four years after the profound panic evoked by the assassination of John Kennedy, the general public seemed to be gaining a restored optimism, and even the regularly protested Vietnam War still possessed the semblance of success (Farber and Bailey 34-54). However, three short weeks following the eve of 68, Americans abruptly obtained a radically different outlook. The Tet Offensive, beginning on January 30, 1968, consisted of a series of military incursions during the Vietnam War, coordinated between the National Liberation Front's People's Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF), or "Viet Cong," and the ...
The Black Panther Party was founded on October, 15, 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton in Oakland, California. This organization was a black revolutionary socialist party that was created to primarily protect African American neighborhoods from violent police brutality. In 1967, the party released and circulated its first newspaper, The Black Panther. Within the same year the organization also protested a ban on weapons in Sacramento on the California State Capitol. After becoming an icon of the 1960's counterculture, the Party was see in numerous cities throughout the nation, with record membership at 10,000 in 1969. Editor of The Black Panther, Eldridge Cleaver and his editorial committee created a document called the Ten-Point Program. This document was comprised of desired wants and needs for the black community, such as; freedom, employment, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. The Black Panthers expressed their injustices with their saying of, "What we Want, What we Believe". Not only did this document demand specific wants for the panthers, it was also a sign of hope and inspiration for the underprivileged blacks that lived in ghettos across the nation. With a strong passion to turn around the poor black communities, the Panthers installed a variety of community social programs that were made to improve several aspects of the inner city ghettos. Two of their most commonly known programs were its Free Breakfast for children program and its armed citizens patrol that made sure police officers behaved within their limit of power and to protect blacks who became victims of racist police brutality abuse. They also instituted a free medical care program and fought the common problem of young blacks using narco...
Roberts, Steven V. "McCarthy Group Seeks to Put Antiwar Candidate on Ballot." New York Times August 22, 1968: 1.