Battleground Chicago or Poor Peoples Movements

Battleground Chicago: The Police and the 1968 Democratic National Convention

Author: Frank Kusch

The 1968 Democratic Convention, best known for police brutality against demonstrators, has been relegated to a dark place in American historical memory. Battleground Chicago ventures beyond the stereotypical image of rioting protestors and violent cops to reevaluate exactly how—and why—the police attacked antiwar activists at the convention.
Working from interviews with eighty former Chicago police officers who were on the scene, Frank Kusch uncovers the other side of the story of ’68, deepening our understanding of a turbulent decade.

“Frank Kusch’s compelling account of the clash between Mayor Richard Daley’s men in blue and anti-war rebels reveals why the 1960s was such a painful era for many Americans. . . . to his great credit, [Kusch] allows ‘the pigs’ to speak up for themselves.”—Michael Kazin

“Kusch’s history of white Chicago policemen and the 1968 Democratic National Convention is a solid addition to a growing literature on the cultural sensibility and political perspective of the conservative white working class in the last third of the twentieth century.”—David Farber, Journal of American History

Table of Contents:

Preface to the Paerback Edition

Preface

Timeline

1 "An American City": The Roots of a Creed 1

2 "Freaks, Cowards, and Bastards": The War at Home 17

3 "What's America Coming To?": January-June 1968 31

4 "On to Chicago": Countdown to August 43

5 "A Perfect Mess": Convention Week 69

6 "Terrorists from Out of Town": Fallout in the Second City 115

7 "Half the Power of God": Chicago in '68 Revisited 135

Conclusion 159

Notes 163

Bibliography 193

Index 201

Books about: La Dolce Vita or Celebrities and Their Culinary Creations

Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail

Author: Richard A Cloward

Have the poor fared best by participating in conventional electoral politics or by engaging in mass defiance and disruption? The authors of the classic Regulating The Poor assess the successes and failures of these two strategies as they examine, in this provocative study, four protest movements of lower-class groups in 20th century America:
— The mobilization of the unemployed during the Great Depression that gave rise to the Workers' Alliance of America
— The industrial strikes that resulted in the formation of the CIO
— The Southern Civil Rights Movement
— The movement of welfare recipients led by the National Welfare Rights Organization.