Video: 'Days of Rage 1969'

(Wednesday, October 8, 1969, 10:25 p.m. CDT; during the Vietnam War, part of the Indochina Wars and the Cold War) — Seeking to “bring the [Vietnam] war home,” the first public protests by the radical Weather Underground faction of the counterculture-era group Students for a Democratic Society began tonight with the “Days of Rage” in Chicago.

The protests were timed to coincide with the “Chicago Seven” trial of defendants people charged with inciting violence during the Democratic National Convention in 1968.

On the first night, a speaker at Lincoln Park told 600 assembled demonstrators to “tear down the Drake Hotel” and to “get” Judge Julius Hoffman, who was presiding over the federal trial.