1968 Chicago DNC protest organizer, protester recall riots, but think 2024 will be different

CHICAGO (WLS) -- All political conventions come with protests, but none compare to the riots at the 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention.

"Police were given free reign to use their clubs and take off their badges," said Craig Sautter, who protested in 1968.

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Sautter was about to begin his senior year at Indiana University when he drove to Chicago to join the protests against the Vietnam War.

"I came over the Skyway I saw line after line of troops, some army troops lined up out there and I said to myself, this is gonna be a wild day," he recalled.

But Don Rose said it didn't have to be that way, had the city worked with the activists to get permits to protest peacefully within eyeshot of the convention.

"Mayor Daley, the original, Richard J., thought we were bad guy sand scum," he said.

DAYS OF RAGE: Timeline of the 1968 Democratic National Convention

Rose was the press spokesman for the National Mobilization Committee to End the War, the main group organizing the protests. He coined the phrase "the whole world is watching" as the law-and-order Daley unleashed Chicago police on the protesters.

"The command is given to clear the streets and that that's when the police just weighed in with billy clubs and tear gas and people are fighting back and people are throwing stuff and it's just total chaos," Sautter said.

With pro-Palestinian protests planned next week during the 2024 DNC, Sautter and Rose said the circumstances are far too different to expect any type of 1968 repeat.

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"The police are much more disciplined and better trained," Rose said.

And with thousands of American soldiers killed in Vietnam, the cause for the 1968 protests affected Americans directly. It also divided the Democratic Party.

"The convention was divided against itself and people were at war within families, adults for the war, kids against it," Sautter said.

Sautter and Rose predict the 2024 DNC will be like most others: a big pep rally for the nominee.