As the DNC heads into its third day in Chicago, thousands of people continued to protest U.S. support for Israel as it wages war against the militant group, Hamas. Hamas executed an attack on October 7 that killed some 1,200 Israelis and roughly 200 Israeli hostages were taken as well. However, Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has left more than 40,000 Palestinians dead including many women and children.
Many are drawing parallels between the protests opposing the war in Gaza at the 2024 DNC to the 1968 DNC, which was also held in Chicago and was known for protests against the U.S.’s war in Vietnam and clashes between police and demonstrators.
Furthermore, In August of 1968 President Lyndon B. Johnson had announced he would not be seeking reelection, and democratic delegates gathered at the city’s international amphitheater to select his potential successor.
Last month, current President Joe Biden announced he too would not seek reelection and now Vice President Kamala Harris will be the Democratic nominee for president.
The mayor of Chicago at the time of the 1968 DNC, Richard Daley, cracked down on the protesters calling on thousands of police and National Guardsmen for “law and order.”
Multiple pro-Palestinian demonstrators were arrested Tuesday after clashing with police during a protest that began outside the Israeli consulate and spilled out onto the surrounding streets on the second night of the DNC.
13 protestors were arrested on Monday when the convention began, according to Chicago Police.
A few dozen who broke away from a larger group voicing their opposition to the war in Gaza and tore down pieces of the security fence up in several areas near convention venues. Several protesters who managed to get through the fence were detained and handcuffed by the police.
Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said Tuesday that the crowd was around 3,500 strong and that the vast majority of the protesters were peaceful.
Heather Hendershot, author of “When the News Broke: Chicago 1968 and the Polarizing of America”, told the 21st show that she understands why people are drawing comparisons between the 1968 and the 2024 DNC.
“It makes sense to look back at history and think about, well, what can we learn? What can we do better than we did before? You know? So the comparison is totally reasonable,” she explained.
“And of course, there are just factual reasons that people are making the comparison right? You have the president who’s in office deciding he’s not going to run again. You have his vice president stepping in as the candidate.”
Hendershot acknowledged there are many parallels, but added that “there’s a lot of different things going on, both politically and in terms of media.”
She said that social media did not exist in 1968 and the main TV networks covering the convention were ABC, NBC, and CBS.
“Basically the best way to describe it is as a mass media environment, and today we live in a niche media environment where people have much more kind of personalized news feeds and also personalized entertainment feeds.”
Hendershoot also explained the political differences between the two conventions-saying that there were different players in Chicago City Hall in 1968.
“You don’t have a kind of authoritarian leaning Mayor like Mayor Daley was. The current mayor (of Chicago), is very different. He has a different relationship to the police, so there’s just, like, a million different kind of factors that make it different.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.