Incident at 18th and Michigan

This was the appropriate way to end that tortured week. It was one of those times when jail is a place of honor. We did not come to that decision hastily. Most of us were unapologetically respectable types—several college professors, one college president, a distinguished lawyer or two, and a reporter from the archetypically establishment New York Times. Murray Kempton of the Post, a New York delegate to the Democratic National Convention, expressed wonderment at himself. Demonstrating was not his “thing,” in fact he had never before been in a demonstration. The first time and here he was getting arrested. It was a week for wonderment. What happened at 18th and Michigan in Chicago on Thursday night August 29 seemed quite natural, almost inevitable.

I

It should have been clear from the beginning what kind of week it was going to be and what kind of response would be required. But at first most of us found the security system amusing in its ludicrous excess. And though amusement was soon replaced by irritation, it still seemed that a little totalitarianism could be tolerated. The truth about the week, and maybe the truth about our society, came home with skull-crushing clarity to some in Lincoln park, later to others in front of the Hilton hotel.