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The 1968 Democratic Convention, or the "Days of Rage" in Chicago, was marked by what was described as a police riot. Story has it that Mike Royko, the legendary Sun Times columnist, had to climb a tree to stay out of reach.
(photograph by David Fenton, 1969)
My friend Eddy, a short order cook at one of the finest corner diners in all of Chicago, a master of hotcakes and ham-on-the-bone, told me his story of the Days of Rage. He was downtown in the south Loop receiving an award at the time - he was a newspaper delivery boy being recognized for doing such a swell job - when he and his contingent of newpaper boys saw men running down the street in their direction.
Encountering men in uniform waving clubs, yelling, and running straight at them, they did what any sensible group of boys of would do: they turned tail and ran for their lives. Unable to outrun the unruly horde bearing down on them, Eddy and his friends ran into the Palmer House Hotel, barricaded the doors somehow, and watched as the police raged outside trying to get in at them.
For what? They were just a group of young, overachieving newspaper delivery boys and assorted pedestrians that happened to be in the area. A window on history, and a police riot indeed.
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