Wild presidential elections and memories of 1968

Editor’s note: Curtis Wilkie, the inaugural fellow for the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics, attended the tumultuous Democratic national convention in 1968 in Chicago as a delegate from Mississippi. With Democrats meeting again in Chicago this month, Wilkie shares a few reflections.

Curtis Wilkie, the inaugural fellow of the Overby Center

Those who think this year’s presidential race is the wildest in history are not old enough to remember 1968.

That year a sitting president also felt forced to drop out before he could run for re-election, elevating the vice president to be their party’s nominee. There were incidents of terrible violence and high passions too. But much, much more.

This time the tumult is largely in the Democratic Party again, but there are distinct differences between the earlier chaos and the shockwaves produced this year.

Fifty-six years ago, the political divisions were inflamed by the war in Vietnam. A powerful movement to stop the conflict developed among many voters, especially Democrats.

This year, the conflict can be traced to personalities. Former President Donald Trump carried at least one felony conviction and other troublesome baggage into the race against President Joe Biden, a visibly aging leader whose party eventually abandoned him, fearing he would bring down the entire Democratic slate of candidates in November.

In recent weeks it seemed that each news story was seismic. One weekend Trump was wounded in an assassination attempt; the next weekend, Biden yielded to pressure and announced he would no longer be a candidate.

But consider the calendar in 1968. Before January was out, American troops were stunned by the Tet offensive – a surprise attack by the Viet Cong and their North Vietnamese allies that reached into Saigon and other cities thought to be U.S. strongholds. It weakened White House claims of imminent victory and intensified opposition to the war at home.

As a result, in mid-March, Sen. Eugene McCarthy, an anti-war candidate, nearly won the Democratic primary in New Hampshire. Three days later, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, another critic of the war, joined McCarthy in the race against President Lyndon B. Johnson for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The contest, being played out against the backdrop of an unpopular war, promised to take on Shakespearian proportions, for Johnson and Kennedy despised each other.

But suddenly, Johnson announced he would not seek the nomination at the end of a routine nationally televised speech on a Sunday night, March 31.

Before the American public could catch its breath, Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered four days later in Memphis. Revered in Black communities across the country, King served as a spiritual leader for Black people – a vital constituency for the Democratic Party. His death set off destructive rioting in dozens of cities. A long corridor of many blocks burned in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol.

The unrest lasted for days. Meanwhile, Kennedy and McCarthy resumed their campaigns to represent the anti-war factions at the national convention at the end of the summer. Vice President Hubert Humphrey planned to rely on the help of the incumbent president to claim the nomination at the convention.

The climax of the primary season came with the critical California primary on June 5. Kennedy prevailed. It would be his greatest victory and last. He spoke on election night to his jubilant followers in a ballroom of a Los Angeles hotel, then was shot and mortally wounded as he walked away from the celebration. He died the next day.

With the support of Johnson’s vast network of contacts in the Democratic Party, Humphrey became the favorite to win the nomination. But the bereaved party was riven by bickering. The bitterness would boil over at the convention.

(Mississippi played a bit part in the drama. An insurgent delegation of civil rights leaders and a few white liberals challenged the credentials of segregationist Gov. John Bell Williams’ choice of convention delegates who were all white and all men. The challenge was based on the actions of the predominantly Black Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at the national convention in 1964 when they had contested an earlier delegation overloaded with whites. The MFDP’s bid to be seated failed, but it caused the national party to adopt new rules ensuring that all future delegations would reflect proportionately the percentage of minorities and women in each state’s population. The Mississippians who revolted against the governor’s delegation in 1964 were the first to take advantage of the new policy and were seated in 1968.)

As the convention opened, thousands of anti-war activists were drawn to Chicago, the convention site. Fearing massive demonstrations and believing ridiculous rumors that a band of extremists from the way-out Youth International Party – the Yippies – planned to poison Chicago’s water supply with LSD, Mayor Richard J. Daley overreacted.

Daley mobilized his police force for war. They drew first blood on the eve of the convention by attacking an anti-war gathering at Lincoln Park on the city’s near North Side.

The confrontation moved downtown the next day to Grant Park where thousands of mostly youthful demonstrators were wedged between Lake Michigan and fashionable Michigan Avenue in front of the Conrad Hilton Hotel where many major Democratic figures, including Humphrey and McCarthy, were staying.

The convention was located miles away, deep in the South Side at the Stockyards, where thousands of animals were regularly slaughtered. The first two days were sprinkled with nasty exchanges among rival delegates and the defeat of a “peace plank” condemning the war. The “hawks” at the convention, composed primarily of Humphrey delegates, were exercising their muscle for future votes.

On Wednesday, serious trouble erupted in front of the Conrad Hilton. Police unleashed another assault. Swinging night sticks as weapons, they made little distinction between ordinary pedestrians and long-haired protesters. Dozens were pushed through a large plate-glass window in the hotel bar. Hundreds of others were chased toward the lake. The lurid scene was captured on television, and battered demonstrators taunted the police by chanting, “The whole world is watching.”

At the same time, a few fistfights and shoving matches broke out among delegates on the convention floor, and a couple of television reporters were mugged by Daley’s security forces.

In an emotional speech from the podium, Sen. Abe Ribicoff pointed his finger at Daley and deplored “Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago.”

The next day was the final day. Humphrey was nominated, and the spectators who had supported the peace plank were denied entry into the Amphitheater. Their seats were taken by hundreds of city workers bearing freshly painted posters saying, “We love Mayor Daley.”

All of this took place in the first eight months of the year before Labor Day, the traditional start of the formal campaign, and the delegates left town with their party in ruins.

There is one other symbolic similarity between the campaigns of 1968 and 2024. The Democrats will be meeting in Chicago again, and at the same time of the year.