CHICAGO (WCAX) – Vermont is sending 24 delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago where they will formally nominate Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee.
The convention is happening more than five decades after the chaotic 1968 Chicago convention. And in an unprecedented election year where the incumbent is not seeking reelection, some are drawing political parallels to that convention 56 years ago.
The Windy City is buzzing with politicos and party faithful. It’s just the second time Chicago has hosted the DNC since 1968.
“That was in some ways the high point as well as the low point of ‘60s activism,” said Kevin Kelley, a longtime journalist for many Vermont publications, including Seven Days.
Fifty-six years later, some see similarities, with President Joe Biden stepping back, the ongoing war in Gaza which has split Democrats and sparked protests on college campuses.
Kelley, who protested at the convention, says in the summer of ‘68, social, political and civil unrest reached a fever pitch in the heat of the Vietnam War. Incumbent Democratic President Lyndon Johnson who was sinking in the polls did not seek reelection. Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy, New York Sen. Bobby Kennedy and Vice President Hubert Humphrey were all jockeying for the nomination.
The assassinations of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Kennedy and the ongoing war in Vietnam sparked nationwide civil unrest.
“It wasn’t just an abstract issue, you yourself could wind up in Vietnam,” Kelley said.
Thousands, including the radical Youth International Party and Students for a Democratic Society, protested at the convention in ‘68.
Kelley, who was alongside the SDS, recalls violence erupting in the streets where police clashed with protesters and left 11 people dead.
Inside the convention, CBS Anchor Dan Rather found himself in the crosshairs of violence, too.
But Kelley and former Vermont governor and DNC chair Howard Dean say the similarities are largely superficial.
“MLK was assassinated, 99 cities were burned down and I’m not talking about the BLM protests, I’m talking about Washington didn’t recover for 25 years after the fires in Washington,” Dean said.
Unlike in 1968, the Democratic Party and its delegates have coalesced around Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee to try to beat former President Donald Trump at the polls in November.
“She’s the first woman to be at the head of a major presidential ticket in this country. There’s a really positive energy around that and I don’t think anything will detract from that,” Kelley said.
Unlike today, Vermont’s delegation was also highly critical of Chicago’s response in 1968. Vermont Gov. Phil Hoff sent a telegram to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley telling him the Vermont delegation was glad to be out of what he described as the “police state” of Chicago, adding, “We do not believe the people of Chicago or the people of this country will endure the police state you imposed on freedom loving Americans who came to your city to demonstrate the democratic process… We are pleased to be liberated from your streets as well as from your amphitheater.”