Living in the COVID World ... and Beyond #90: The Summer of 1968

First, in my previous blog, I shared the text of the talk I gave about who pays for climate catastrophes.  If you you’d like to watch the 45-minute video of the event with both my compatriot from Nepal and I, here’s a link: https://www.rc.org/publication/environment/Loss___Damage_in_Nepal_Workshop_9-25-26_v2.mp4

In the spring and early summer of 1968, Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy were shot to death.   I was 12 years old.  At that age, I was already reading the newspaper and watching the nightly news on television.   I read about the murders and remembered seeing footage surrounding the actual events, including Kenedy’s assassination.   These were difficult events to fully understand and process as a 12-year-old but I knew it was wrong and that millions of people were sad and upset.

The summer of 1968 was my political awakening.  In August, the Democratic National Convention occurred in Chicago.   In those days, political conventions were covered in their entirety on national television.   Unlike today, the conventions ran all day and TV reporters and cameras were there … from the morning through the afternoon and late into the evening.

As a 12-year-old who was at home most summer days, I watched the television coverage of the Democratic National Convention end-to-end.  It is fair to say that I was glued to the TV.  What happened at this convention was unlike any other convention, maybe before or since.   There were large-scale protests outside the convention mostly by younger people opposed to the Vietnam War.

The whole situation got set up as quite adversarial.  Mayor Daley, the Mayor of Chicago, instructed the police to break up the demonstrations and arrest the protestors.  His goal was to maintain his sense of order and control.   His goal was diametrically opposed to the aim of the protestors – which was to be disruptive and to have their concerns heard.  The outcome of this was chaos in the streets of Chicago.  And it was covered live all day long on television which I watched sitting on the floor in our family room, fascinated, horrified, and upset.   I saw many images of young people, called hippies, being beaten and arrested by Chicago’s police. 

It is hard to explain my memories of that week.  I know I was mesmerized by what I was seeing.  It was difficult for me to leave the vicinity of the TV set.     It was an unworldly scene to me, based on my experiences in life to-date, and I couldn’t help but be rooting for the protestors. I was on their side.   I’m not sure I fully understood about what they were protesting – but they were younger, idealistic, and, best that I could tell, were advocating for the end of the Vietnam War.  Meanwhile, the police came across as mean and vicious, using their power unfairly against unarmed people.

This past weekend, I participated in another No Kings demonstration.  

I’m thankful to the television coverage of the Democratic National Convention in August 1968 for having politicized me and helped to form the values of peace and justice that I have tried to live to ever since.