1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago

Overview

The 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago nominated Hubert Humphrey while anti-war protest, police violence, internal party conflict, and live television turned the event into a national symbol of Democratic disorder.

Current Profile

The convention joined two crises that could not be contained separately. Inside, delegates inherited a nomination system already strained by Johnson’s withdrawal, McCarthy and Kennedy primary campaigns, Humphrey’s party-insider advantage, Kennedy’s assassination, and conflict over Vietnam. Outside, MOBE organizers, Yippies, police, the National Guard, journalists, and bystanders struggled over access to public space. The Michigan Avenue police riot then collapsed the boundary between street events and party proceedings: tear gas reached political hotels, television carried beatings nationwide, and Humphrey’s first-ballot victory became secondary to institutional breakdown.

Key Characteristics

• Culminated a nomination process divided between primary momentum and party-controlled delegates.
• Combined denied permits, heavily secured venues, constrained protest routes, and escalating street confrontations.
• Included repeated police violence against demonstrators, journalists, medics, and bystanders.
• Became inseparable from television coverage and the political meaning assigned to images of disorder.
• Produced a formal Humphrey victory but a broader narrative defeat for the Democratic Party.
• Fed the later Chicago Seven prosecution and Nixon’s law-and-order campaign environment.

Evidence

• Political crisis: 512. America in ‘68: The Chicago Riots (Part 5) connects the nomination fight to Vietnam, Johnson’s withdrawal, Kennedy’s death, and anti-war division.
• Nomination prehistory: 510. America in ‘68: The Killing of Robert Kennedy (Part 3) shows how McCarthy’s challenge, Kennedy’s momentum strategy, Humphrey’s delegate advantage, and assassination produced the conflict Chicago inherited.
• Street escalation: 512. America in ‘68: The Chicago Riots (Part 5) traces confrontations from Lincoln Park through Grant Park to the televised Michigan Avenue police charge.
• Institutional and electoral fallout: 512. America in ‘68: The Chicago Riots (Part 5) describes Ribicoff’s denunciation, Daley’s response, Humphrey’s overshadowed nomination, public support for police, and Nixon’s advantage.

Qualifications

The accounts are retrospective narratives rather than a complete institutional or social history. The Kennedy episode does not establish how surviving primary contests or delegate bargaining would have changed the convention. The Chicago episode includes police perspectives and activist miscalculation but gives less direct voice to rank-and-file demonstrators, injured people, Black Chicago residents, or ordinary officers.

What Changed

• Established the convention as a joined party, policing, protest, and media crisis rather than a nomination event alone.
• Added the primary-delegate legitimacy conflict and Kennedy’s interrupted campaign as convention prehistory.

Relationships

• Hubert Humphrey - nominee whose victory was overshadowed by the crisis.
• Richard J. Daley - host-city mayor and defender of the police response.
• Abbie Hoffman - organizer who brought Yippie political theatre to Chicago.
• Protest Media Spectacle - mechanism through which street action became national political meaning.
• 1968 United States Presidential Election - campaign contest reshaped by the convention’s fallout.
• Law-and-Order Racial Signaling - electoral frame strengthened by images and interpretations of disorder.
• Robert F. Kennedy - assassinated contender whose absence transformed the nomination struggle.
• Eugene McCarthy - primary challenger whose supporters contested Humphrey’s legitimacy.
• Primary-Delegate Legitimacy Gap - structural conflict carried into the convention.