Right to Dissent: A Press Conference, The

Transcript (Download)

I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.

We are coming to Chicago at the time of the Democratic National Convention.

Not to disrupt the convention, not to confront the police, national guard troops, or men in the United States Army.

But to challenge the policies of militarization that have been felt so strongly and brutally in Vietnam.

And when the ruling party, a party administrating militarism and racism, when it invites a convention, or it is invited into the city for a convention, it is inevitable that people who believe in decent human values and in human life and liberty will come with the convention in order to protest.

And if Professor Peck and I and Professor Kalish and the other chairman of the mobilization very foolishly ask people not to come to Chicago, they would be here anyway.

Some 30 ,000 military personnel who will be stationed in the city of Chicago on total alert throughout the week of the convention, making available some 25 places across the city for them to have the bid -rax trainings, meetings, and the like.

While the tens of thousands of American citizens coming to Chicago, the leadership of whom have again and again tried to secure meeting space, park space, permits for marches, assembly areas, the International Amphitheater, they go ignored.

I think that one should understand that people have traveled thousands, not thousands of miles, because I don't know how many thousands of miles, but hundreds of miles to come to Chicago.

When they get here, they are tired.

They want a place to stay, they want a place to sleep.

We naturally would assume, as we did in Washington, which I think is a good cause, and in New York, that the facilities of the city would be available to those coming in to demonstrate their concern on these issues of militarism and racism, and that the parks would be available for the people to sleep in and to use.

You know the parks aren't available.

We've been told that they're closed at 11 o 'clock.

Well, that's something that still seems to me there can be a change of decision about.

If the authorities recognize that there are going to be thousands of people here, and recognize that the only alternative for people are to be in the streets, it seems to me the sensible thing to do is to change their minds.

You're trying to say we should change the law to accommodate you.

Is that what you're saying? I'm talking about you.

You're saying we should change the law to accommodate your people.

I'm saying that the law has been changed previously.

We know that the military has been allowed to sleep in the park.

And this was brought out in our...

The military was brought into the park because of the large number of people that the mobilization groups...

I'm sorry, but it was brought...

The military is here because of you.

We didn't have the military before you came.

I'm talking about previous situations in which people have been allowed to sleep in the park.

There will be 100 ,000 hotel rooms in space at the amphitheater when there's only room for 11 ,000 delegates.

That's an interesting point because we are not asking for 11 ,000 hotel rooms.

We asked initially for soldiers' fields, which we felt would be a place that our people could camp out, could sleep in their sleeping bags and this type of thing.

In a typical police state maneuver, instead of granting soldiers' fields to the peaceful demonstrators, it has been granted to the National Guard and the troops.

When the mayor has...

When they've had to turn Chicago into a police state, this is the kind of thing which brings home to people how close to the surface the policy of violence and repression is.

We know that from reports in newspapers and our own reports that dossiers have been filled out on hundreds of people around the country working for social change.

Our lawyers have told us that the judges have been given pictures of key people that might be arrested in Chicago, and they should know who those people are.

If the people stay away and withdraw, if they don't fight for their democratic rights, then there will be a police state by default.

Now there is one hopeful aspect to this, as small as it is, but that we are communicating to our people throughout the country.

And that is that we do have grant parks from one to four on Wednesday afternoon for a rally.

Now this is totally inadequate from the point of view of what people are coming in for, in other words, to be at the amphitheater.

If our people were simply interested in an old -fashioned parade for peace and a rally or teach -in, that could have happened in the city where they live.

Won't you be creating an incident? You're going to put yourself right in the middle of the National Guard.

We may be creating an incident like the Czechoslovakians created an incident when they refused to surrender their liberties because the Soviet troops were massed at their border.

I think everybody knows who was the guilty party in that incident.

And when we come here to assert our democratic rights and are threatened and intimidated by troops, mace, tanks, guns, all the rest of it, and if we decide that we cannot allow a police state to be created by default but proceed to the amphitheater, I think it will be extremely clear who has created the incident.

Move! Move! Move! Move out! Move away! Don't move! If you just walk by me, show yourself! The Conrad Hill Hotel, speak our voices.

What we have left of it.

I was there, drop! Speak it heard at the Conrad Hill Hotel.

I was there, drop! Way down there! Two blocks down, that way!

Identifier

F.2005-03-0033

Date Of Production

1968

Abstract

Records a pre-convention press conference of the National Committee to End in the War in Vietnam. David Dellinger and Rennie Davis recount their difficulties in dealing with the City of Chicago to plan their protests against the 1968 Democratic Convention.

Description

This film is part of a seven part module or educational film series ("The Urban Crisis and the New Militants") produced by The Film Group that, "teach by raising questions rather than by attempting to answer them." The modules tell their story through editing rather than voice-over narration and show "real events, with real people acting spontaneously," as the Group explained to an educational film distributor.

Run Time

0:08:57

Format

16mm

Extent

322 feet

Color

B&W

Sound

Optical

Reel/Tape Number

1/1

Has Been Digitized?

Yes

Language Of Materials

English

Element

Preservation answer print

Genre

Documentary
Educational

Form

Short
Press Conferences

Subject

Chicago (Ill.)
Chicago (Ill.) Police Dept.
Democratic National Convention (1968: Chicago, Ill.)
Student movements
Politics and government
Political conventions

Related Collections

SERIES: Urban Crisis and the New Militants

Related Places

North America ➜ United States ➜ Illinois ➜ Chicago

Distributor

NewenhouseNovo

Main Credits

Film Group (is production company)

Participants And Performers

Dellinger, David T. (is participant)

Davis, Rennie (is participant)

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