Police battle anti-war demonstrators in Chicago 50 years ago this hour #OnThisDay #OTD (Aug 28 1968)

Video: 'PBS Documentary "Television" - Episode 4 of 8' (Aug. 28, 1968, at 33:02/35:14)

(Wednesday, August 28, 1968, shortly before 8:00 p.m. CDT; during the 1968 Democratic National Convention) — As Democrats picked their next presidential nominee tonight at the International Amphitheatre, a pitched battle between the police and thousands of young anti-Vietnam war demonstrators raged in the streets of Chicago.

Young protesters were clubbed, kicked and gassed as Chicago police officers turned back a march on the convention hall. The demonstrators, conscious of television coverage of the unrest, shouted: “The whole world is watching, the whole world is watching.”

Most of the violence took place across Michigan Avenue from the convention headquarters hotel, the Conrad Hilton, in full view of delegates’ wives and others watching from its windows.

From the convention rostrum, Senator Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut denounced the use of “Gestapo tactics on the streets of Chicago” in his speech nominating George McGovern.

Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, sitting with the Illinois delegation directly in front of the raised platform, responded by shouting epithets at Ribicoff that weren’t picked up by the television microphones, but that viewers could easily discern by reading the Mayor’s expressive lips.

The Senator responded, “How hard it is to accept the truth.”

By 11:47 p.m. CDT, delegates had chosen Vice President Hubert Humphrey as the party’s nominee on a platform reflecting his and President Lyndon B. Johnson’s views on the war in Vietnam.

Video: '1968 Democratic Convention' (Aug. 28-29, 1968, at 41:28)