Vietnam Then, Gaza Now: Bill Ayers & Juan González on 1968 and 2024 Antiwar Protests at Chicago DNC

The 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, taking place against the backdrop of an unpopular war opposed by a growing number of voters, carries echoes of the 1968 DNC in the same city, when police violently attacked protesters calling for an end to the war in Vietnam. Much of the police riot unfolded on live national television, showing police, members of the National Guard and U.S. Army soldiers brutally assaulting and arresting protesters, many of them students. After four days and nights, more than 650 people were arrested and more than 1,100 injured. We look back on the infamous 1968 DNC with Bill Ayers, longtime Chicago activist, author and founding member of the Weather Underground, and Democracy Now! co-host Juan González. Both of them were in Chicago to take part in the protests. “It was really an eye-opening period for all of us who attended, who were out in the streets,” says González. “Chicago showed us what the crisis in the country was, the crisis of racism and white supremacy, the crisis of empire and war,” adds Ayers.