The five-month trial of the Chicago Eight began in September. In the end, some ten thousand or so demonstrators gathered-enough to trigger a week of violent confrontations with the police, including one later termed by a federal commission a “police riot.” Johnson, as a candidate for reelection and Chicago mayor Richard Daley’s increasingly threatening public statements about maintaining order, the appeal to “come to Chicago” became more muted. But with the withdrawal of their principal target, President Lyndon B. There were originally eight defendants: David Dellinger, a pacifist and chairman of the National Mobilization against the War Tom Hayden and Rennie Davis, leaders of the Students for a Democratic Society, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, leaders of the Youth International Party John Froines and Lee Weiner, local Chicago organizers and Bobby Seale, cofounder of the Black Panther Party.Įxcept for the Panthers, who were uninvolved from the start, all the groups represented had planned massive demonstrations during convention week. In February 1970, five of the seven were found guilty, but an appeals court overturned the convictions in 1972. The case drew national attention for the artists and activists that testified as witnesses, as well as defendant Bobby Seale’s actions, which earned him four years in prison for contempt of court. During the five-month trial, the prosecution stressed the defendants’ provocative rhetoric and subversive intentions, while the defense attributed the violence to official overreaction. "Looking back on the trial and the generational convulsion it was a part of, Weiner refreshingly doesn't swear off his old allegiances or political ideals.The Chicago Seven (originally eight) were political radicals accused of conspiring to incite the riots that occurred at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. “A new memoir by Lee Weiner - the member of the Chicago Seven that was actually from the city - gives fresh insight into how the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests and trial really went down.” -Chicago magazine A welcome addition to the library of the countercultural 1960s left." -Kirkus Reviews "A book that should be shelved alongside Mark Rudd's Underground and Pat Thomas's Did It! Weiner closes with a stirring paean to activism. Along the way, he collected a couple of master’s degrees and a PhD in sociology. His later political work included direct response fundraising for members of Congress and national non-profit organizations. His activist life began with free-speech demonstrations at the University of Illinois in 1960, included community organizing in desperately poor neighborhoods in Chicago, and led to his indictment in the notorious trial of the Chicago 7 in 1969. Lee Weiner was born and raised on Chicago’s South Side. With startling relevance to today’s polarized political climate, Conspiracy to Riot is a book for anyone who hopes for a better, more just world, and offers a blueprint for how to make it happen. In this irreverent, freewheeling memoir of an indelible moment in history-which Kirkus Review called “a welcome addition to the library of the countercultural 1960s left”- Conspiracy to Riot shows how a commitment to your ideals can change your destiny forever. The ensuing trial of the Chicago 7 became a media sensation, and it changed Weiner’s life forever. But it also included a little-known community activist and social worker from the South Side of Chicago named Lee Weiner, who was just as surprised as the rest of the country when his name was included in the indictment. First dubbed the “Conspiracy 8” and later the “Chicago 7,” the group included firebrands like Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Bobby Seale. In March 1969, eight young men were indicted by the federal government for conspiracy to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. A memoir of a life in activism by one of the original defendants in the Trial of the Chicago 7, subject of the 2020 Oscar-nominated Aaron Sorkin film of the same name.
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