Bernie Sieracki had just finished serving with the Army in Korea and Vietnam and was a student in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.He recalled someone from the SDS — Students for a Democratic Society — an activist group, asking him how many babies he had killed. “I thought, ‘You stupid people.’ That’s the kind of perspective I bring to this.”
Taylor Pensoneau covered the 1968 Democratic National Convention for the St.Louis Post-Dispatch. He said some demonstrators used “calculated provocation” toward authorities, and some protesters wrested billy clubs from police and beat them. He said the protestors he had contacted before the event and met with regularly to get updated on what was happening in the parks, intended to be peaceful. “They were as upset as I was,” at the violence, Pensoneau said.
Dennis McMurray remembers the lingering smell of "stink bombs" at the Hilton Hotel during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which had been used by police to disperse the crowds. A college student at the time, he said his history professor told him he'd see "history in the making."