History Lessons

History Lessons

Noel Laflin

8-28-18

I read posts on history every day as I can’t seem to help myself. Much of the time I marvel at what took place on a particular day and year. Sometimes I cringe, and wish I could rewrite a particularly sad post.

One event on this, the 28th day of August, stands out as if it were yesterday since it’s the 50th anniversary of the mass rioting in and around the streets of the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Hubert Humphrey, after three contentious hours of debate, would get the the nod to lead the ticket, folks supporting Eugene McCarthy protested, cops bashed in many a youngster’s (and oldster’s) head, Nixon called for law and order and eventually won on that platform. America was never the same again.

I was fifteen, listening to events unfold on a tinny transistor radio deep in the woods at summer camp. I had so many mixed, adolescent emotions following the week-long debacle as my own brother was in Vietnam at the time, and yet I longed to be a demonstrator taking to the streets.