Shawyer dissertation May 2008 final version - The University of ...

Yippies wildly projected, was inspiring. The communitas of the crowd united the veteranMobe and SDS pacifists with the drug-addled hippies, the militant anarchists, and themadcap Yippies.The whole shifting mass of people swirled around the protest headquarters inLincoln Park, wandered further south towards Grant Park across from the Conrad HiltonHotel, where many of the delegates were staying, and eyed the barricades and policecheckpoints preventing them from getting close to the International Amphitheater. TheCity was determined to keep the demonstrators away from the delegates. By refusingmarch permits, they hoped to discourage the crowds of activists from entering thedowntown core. When the demonstrators began to press this issue, a nervous police forceresponded with beatings and tear gas, resulting in a week of violent confrontationbetween police, army, and demonstrators.The violence lasted for the entire Convention week, from Sunday 25 August, thefirst day of the Festival of Life, to Friday 30 August, the last planned day ofdemonstrations. The Sunday rock concert fizzled when police pulled the plug onamplifiers to the dismay of a hostile crowd. The real violence began that night, when theauthorities attempted to clear Lincoln Park of campers. When several thousand “antidraft,antiwar, anti-Humphrey, New Left, hippie and Yippie youths” refused to leave the park,the police moved in (“Hundreds” 25). According to a report on Chicago Police activitiessent to the White House the week after the convention, the crowd shouted slogans like“Fuck the Pigs” and “Hell No We Won’t Go” and threw improvised missiles of rocks andbottles (19). The violence continued on Monday: during the day the police skirmished176