Days of Rage
Encyclopedia
The Days of Rage demonstrations were a series of direct actions taken over a course of three days in October 1969 in Chicago organized by the Weatherman faction of the Students for a Democratic Society
. The group planned the October 8–11 event as a "National Action" built around John Jacobs'
slogan, "bring the war home." The National Action grew out of a resolution drafted by Jacobs and introduced at the October 1968 SDS National Council meeting in Boulder, Colorado. The resolution, titled "The Elections Don't Mean Shit—Vote Where the Power Is—Our Power Is In The Street" and adopted by the council, was prompted by the success of the Democratic National Convention protests in August 1968 and reflected Jacobs' strong advocacy of direct action
as a political strategy.
In the months before the Days of Rage, despite the tensions within SDS, many members of Weather/SDS worked non-stop in promoting the demonstration. Lyndon Comstock was sent, along with three other members, to Lansing, Michigan to organize and promote the event. Leaflets were printed and distributed to high school and community college students during the day, while at night members would spray paint anti-war graffiti on local school campuses.
On October 5, 1969 the statue commemorating the policemen killed in the 1886 Haymarket affair
was dynamited. The blast broke nearly 100 windows and scattered pieces of the statue onto the Kennedy Expressway below. No one was ever arrested for the bombing.
As October 8 approached, Weatherman found itself isolated from SDS, but maintained high hopes that thousands would attend the mass demonstration in Chicago.
gave a short speech, telling the protesters not to believe press reports that the Chicago 8
disagreed with their action. Abbie Hoffman
and John Froines
, other members of the Chicago 8, also came but decided not to speak and quickly left. Late in the evening, Jacobs stood on the pedestal of the bombed Haymarket policemen's statue and declared: "We'll probably lose people today... We don't really have to win here ... just the fact that we are willing to fight the police is a political victory." Jacobs' speech compared the coming protest to the fight against fascism
in World War II
. By this time there were around 350 protesters. Jeff Jones
announced "I am Marion Delgado" an adopted folk hero of Weatherman (Delgado was a five-year-old Chicano boy who had derailed a passenger train in 1947 by putting a slab of concrete on the track) and for the first time told the crowd the target of the march: the Drake Hotel, home of Julius Hoffman, the judge in the Chicago 8 trial.
Finally, at 10:25 p.m., Jones gave the pre-arranged signal over a bullhorn, and the Weatherman action began. John Jacobs, Jeff Jones, David Gilbert and others led a charge south through the city toward the Drake Hotel and the exceptionally affluent Gold Coast neighborhood, smashing windows in automobiles and buildings as they went. The protesters attacked "ordinary cars, a barber shop...and the windows of lower-middle-class homes" as well as police cars and luxury businesses. The mass of the crowd ran about four blocks before encountering police barricades. The mob charged the police breaking off into small groups, and more than 1,000 police counter-attacked. Although many protesters had motorcycle or football helmets on, the police were better trained and armed; nightsticks were aimed at necks, legs and groins. Large amounts of tear gas were used, and at least twice police ran squad cars full speed into crowds. After only a half-hour or so, the riot was over: 28 policemen were injured (none seriously), six Weathermen were shot and an unknown number injured, and 68 protesters were arrested. Jacobs was arrested almost immediately.
addressed them. The plan was to raid a draft board office, but they were overpowered by police when they tried to leave the park. Later that day Illinois Governor Richard Ogilvie announced that he had called in over 2,500 National Guardsmen to "protect Chicago". Weatherman cancelled protests that had been planned for that evening.
Supporters of the Revolutionary Youth Movement II (RYM II)
, led by Klonsky and Noel Ignatin, held peaceful rallies of several hundred people in front of the federal courthouse, an International Harvester factory, and Cook County Hospital. The largest event of the Days of Rage occurred on Friday, October 10, when RYM II led an interracial march of 2,000 people through a Spanish-speaking part of Chicago. At the October 9 RYM II rally at the federal courthouse Black Panther
leader Fred Hampton
disassociated his group from Weatherman, saying, "We do not support people who are anarchistic, opportunistic, adventuristic, and Custeristic." That night Weatherman uncovered a police informant, who was then severely beaten by one member of the group. The assailant, who immediately appeared on wanted posters, became the first member of Weatherman to go underground.
Richard Elrod, a city attorney, was paralyzed after he attempted to tackle Weatherman member Brian Flanagan
. Elrod accused Flanagan of attacking him, while Flanagan maintained that Elrod simply hit a concrete wall. Flanagan was charged with attempted murder and other crimes but was acquitted on all counts.
Chicago Black Panther Party
leader Fred Hampton
, who had a mostly friendly relationship with the Weatherman, denounced the group's action, fearing that it would alienate potential allies and invite an escalation of police oppression. "We believe that the Weather [Underground Organization's] action was anarchistic, opportunistic, individualistic, chauvinistic, [and] Custeristic… It's nothing but child's play - it's folly."
Jones and other Weathermen failed to appear for their March 1970 court date to face charges of "crossing state lines to foment a riot and conspiring to do so." "Unlawful flight to avoid prosecution" charges were added when they failed to appear in court.
The Days of Rage demonstrations did not turn out as Weatherman members had anticipated. The combination of low turnout and enormous numbers of police made for an even more violent demonstration than originally intended. The reaction to the Days of Rage demonstrations permanently damaged the relationship between Weatherman, SDS and the Black Panther Party while paving the way to more militant actions by Weatherman and eventually leading to the organization moving underground.
Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...
. The group planned the October 8–11 event as a "National Action" built around John Jacobs'
John Jacobs (student leader)
John Gregory Jacobs was an American student and anti-war activist in the 1960s and early 1970s. He was a leader in both Students for a Democratic Society and the Weatherman group, and an advocate of the use of violent force to overthrow the government of the United States...
slogan, "bring the war home." The National Action grew out of a resolution drafted by Jacobs and introduced at the October 1968 SDS National Council meeting in Boulder, Colorado. The resolution, titled "The Elections Don't Mean Shit—Vote Where the Power Is—Our Power Is In The Street" and adopted by the council, was prompted by the success of the Democratic National Convention protests in August 1968 and reflected Jacobs' strong advocacy of direct action
Direct action
Direct action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...
as a political strategy.
Events leading to Days of Rage
In 1969, tensions ran high among the factions of SDS. Weatherman was still part of the organization but differences were coming to the surface. “Look at it: America 1969” put forth SDS’s bottom line regarding the National Action. By the end of August, the differences between Weatherman and RYM II had emerged, leading to the resignation of RYM II leader and member of SDS Mike Klonsky from the Weatherman-controlled National office leadership. He accused Weatherman of going back on the convention’s mandate. Weatherman members Mark Rudd and Terry Robbins responded, saying that priority must be given to building an anti-imperialist youth movement.In the months before the Days of Rage, despite the tensions within SDS, many members of Weather/SDS worked non-stop in promoting the demonstration. Lyndon Comstock was sent, along with three other members, to Lansing, Michigan to organize and promote the event. Leaflets were printed and distributed to high school and community college students during the day, while at night members would spray paint anti-war graffiti on local school campuses.
On October 5, 1969 the statue commemorating the policemen killed in the 1886 Haymarket affair
Haymarket affair
The Haymarket affair was a demonstration and unrest that took place on Tuesday May 4, 1886, at the Haymarket Square in Chicago. It began as a rally in support of striking workers. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they dispersed the public meeting...
was dynamited. The blast broke nearly 100 windows and scattered pieces of the statue onto the Kennedy Expressway below. No one was ever arrested for the bombing.
As October 8 approached, Weatherman found itself isolated from SDS, but maintained high hopes that thousands would attend the mass demonstration in Chicago.
October 8, 1969
Despite efforts to recruit youth and promote involvement, participation in the "Days of Rage" demonstrations was not as broadly based as advertised, or as participants had hoped. About 800 Weatherman members showed up prior to October 8 and faced 2000 police officers. No more than 300 were left willing to face the enormous gathering of police a second time around on the evening of Wednesday, October 8, 1969, in Chicago's Lincoln Park, and perhaps half of them were members of Weatherman collectives from around the country. The crowd milled about for several hours, cold and uncertain. Tom HaydenTom Hayden
Thomas Emmet "Tom" Hayden is an American social and political activist and politician, known for his involvement in the animal rights, and the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s. He is the former husband of actress Jane Fonda and the father of actor Troy Garity.-Life and...
gave a short speech, telling the protesters not to believe press reports that the Chicago 8
Chicago Seven
The Chicago Seven were seven defendants—Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, and Lee Weiner—charged with conspiracy, inciting to riot, and other charges related to protests that took place in Chicago, Illinois on the occasion of the 1968...
disagreed with their action. Abbie Hoffman
Abbie Hoffman
Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman was a political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ....
and John Froines
John Froines
John R. Froines is a chemist and anti-war activist.He is noted as a member of the Chicago Seven, a group charged with involvement with the riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Froines, who holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Yale, was charged with interstate travel for purposes of...
, other members of the Chicago 8, also came but decided not to speak and quickly left. Late in the evening, Jacobs stood on the pedestal of the bombed Haymarket policemen's statue and declared: "We'll probably lose people today... We don't really have to win here ... just the fact that we are willing to fight the police is a political victory." Jacobs' speech compared the coming protest to the fight against fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. By this time there were around 350 protesters. Jeff Jones
Jeff Jones (activist)
Jeff Jones is an environmental activist and consultant in Upstate New York. He was a national officer in Students for a Democratic Society, a founding member of Weatherman, and a leader of the Weather Underground....
announced "I am Marion Delgado" an adopted folk hero of Weatherman (Delgado was a five-year-old Chicano boy who had derailed a passenger train in 1947 by putting a slab of concrete on the track) and for the first time told the crowd the target of the march: the Drake Hotel, home of Julius Hoffman, the judge in the Chicago 8 trial.
Finally, at 10:25 p.m., Jones gave the pre-arranged signal over a bullhorn, and the Weatherman action began. John Jacobs, Jeff Jones, David Gilbert and others led a charge south through the city toward the Drake Hotel and the exceptionally affluent Gold Coast neighborhood, smashing windows in automobiles and buildings as they went. The protesters attacked "ordinary cars, a barber shop...and the windows of lower-middle-class homes" as well as police cars and luxury businesses. The mass of the crowd ran about four blocks before encountering police barricades. The mob charged the police breaking off into small groups, and more than 1,000 police counter-attacked. Although many protesters had motorcycle or football helmets on, the police were better trained and armed; nightsticks were aimed at necks, legs and groins. Large amounts of tear gas were used, and at least twice police ran squad cars full speed into crowds. After only a half-hour or so, the riot was over: 28 policemen were injured (none seriously), six Weathermen were shot and an unknown number injured, and 68 protesters were arrested. Jacobs was arrested almost immediately.
October 9, 1969
The next day a "Women's Militia" of around seventy female Weatherman members met at Grant Park, where Bernardine DohrnBernardine Dohrn
Bernardine Rae Dohrn is a former leader of the American anti-Vietnam War radical organization, Weather Underground. She is an Associate Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law and the immediate past Director of Northwestern's Children and Family Justice Center...
addressed them. The plan was to raid a draft board office, but they were overpowered by police when they tried to leave the park. Later that day Illinois Governor Richard Ogilvie announced that he had called in over 2,500 National Guardsmen to "protect Chicago". Weatherman cancelled protests that had been planned for that evening.
Supporters of the Revolutionary Youth Movement II (RYM II)
Revolutionary Youth Movement
The Revolutionary Youth Movement was the section of Students for a Democratic Society that opposed the Worker Student Alliance of the Progressive Labor Party...
, led by Klonsky and Noel Ignatin, held peaceful rallies of several hundred people in front of the federal courthouse, an International Harvester factory, and Cook County Hospital. The largest event of the Days of Rage occurred on Friday, October 10, when RYM II led an interracial march of 2,000 people through a Spanish-speaking part of Chicago. At the October 9 RYM II rally at the federal courthouse Black Panther
Black panther
A black panther is typically a melanistic color variant of any of several species of larger cat. Wild black panthers in Latin America are black jaguars , in Asia and Africa they are black leopards , and in North America they may be black jaguars or possibly black cougars A black panther is...
leader Fred Hampton
Fred Hampton
Fred Hampton was an African-American activist and deputy chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party...
disassociated his group from Weatherman, saying, "We do not support people who are anarchistic, opportunistic, adventuristic, and Custeristic." That night Weatherman uncovered a police informant, who was then severely beaten by one member of the group. The assailant, who immediately appeared on wanted posters, became the first member of Weatherman to go underground.
October 11, 1969
On Saturday, October 11, Weatherman attempted to regroup and reignite the revolution. About 300 protesters marched swiftly through The Loop, Chicago's main business district, watched over by a double-line of heavily armed police. Led by Jacobs and other Weatherman members, the protesters suddenly broke through the police lines and rampaged through the Loop, smashing windows of cars and stores. But the police were ready, and quickly sealed off the protesters. Within 15 minutes, more than half the crowd had been arrested—one of the first, again, being Jacobs.Richard Elrod, a city attorney, was paralyzed after he attempted to tackle Weatherman member Brian Flanagan
Brian Flanagan
Brian Flanagan is a former member of the American radical left organizations Students for a Democratic Society and the Weather Underground Organization .-Early life:...
. Elrod accused Flanagan of attacking him, while Flanagan maintained that Elrod simply hit a concrete wall. Flanagan was charged with attempted murder and other crimes but was acquitted on all counts.
Aftermath
The Days of Rage cost Chicago and the state of Illinois about $183,000 ($100,000 for National Guard payroll, $35,000 in damages, and $20,000 for one injured citizen's medical expenses). 287 members of Weather were arrested during the Days of Rage and most of Weatherman and SDS' leaders were jailed. The organization paid out more than $243,000 to cover bail.Chicago Black Panther Party
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party wasan African-American revolutionary leftist organization. It was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982....
leader Fred Hampton
Fred Hampton
Fred Hampton was an African-American activist and deputy chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party...
, who had a mostly friendly relationship with the Weatherman, denounced the group's action, fearing that it would alienate potential allies and invite an escalation of police oppression. "We believe that the Weather [Underground Organization's] action was anarchistic, opportunistic, individualistic, chauvinistic, [and] Custeristic… It's nothing but child's play - it's folly."
Jones and other Weathermen failed to appear for their March 1970 court date to face charges of "crossing state lines to foment a riot and conspiring to do so." "Unlawful flight to avoid prosecution" charges were added when they failed to appear in court.
The Days of Rage demonstrations did not turn out as Weatherman members had anticipated. The combination of low turnout and enormous numbers of police made for an even more violent demonstration than originally intended. The reaction to the Days of Rage demonstrations permanently damaged the relationship between Weatherman, SDS and the Black Panther Party while paving the way to more militant actions by Weatherman and eventually leading to the organization moving underground.
Secondary sources
- Churchill, Ward and Vander Wall, Jim. The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States. 2d ed. Boston: South End Press, 2002. ISBN 0896086488.
- Collier, Peter, and Horowitz, David. “Doing It: The Inside Story of the Rise and Fall of the Weather Underground.” Rolling Stone. September 30, 1982.
- "FBI Drops 10-Year Hunt for 'Weather' Group Leaders." Los Angeles Times. October 20, 1979.
- Gillies, Kevin. "The Last Radical." Vancouver Magazine. November 1998.
- Good, Thomas. "Brian Flanagan Speaks." Next Left Notes. 2005.
- "Haymarket Statue Bombed." Chicago Tribune. October 7, 1969.
- Jones, Thai. A Radical Line: From the Labor Movement to the Weather Underground, One Family's Century of Conscience. New York: The Free Press, 2004. ISBN 0743250273.
- Kifner, John. "12 S.D.S. Militants Indicted in Chicago." New York Times. April 3, 1970.
- Klonsky, Mike. "Toward A Revolutionary Youth Movement." New Left Notes. December 23, 1968.
- MacLennan, Catherine. "How Can You Do Nothing? The Weather Underground Bring the War Home." The Lamp. April 2004.
- Patterson, John. "They Emerged From 1960s Radical Chic to Become America's Most Wanted Fugitives." The Guardian. July 4, 2003.
- "Statue Honoring Police Is Blown Up in Chicago." New York Times. October 8, 1969.
- Shepard, Benjamin. "Antiwar Movements, Then and Now." Monthly Review. February 2002.
- Short, John G. "The Weathermen're Shot, They're Bleeding, They're Running, They're Wiping Stuff Out." Harvard Crimson. June 11, 1970.
- Smith, Bryan. "Sudden Impact." Chicago Magazine. December 2006.
- "You Don't Need A Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows." New Left Notes. June 18, 1969.