This week the New York Times published an oral history on 1968’s Democratic National Convention in honor of 2024’s Democratic National Convention, currently taking place in Chicago, Illinois.

Student protestors across the country in 1968 were opposing the Vietnam War, and there is an unmistakeable parallel to the past Israel-Palestine conflict protests on college campuses this past spring. The piece reads, “there are some unmistakable parallels between that convention and the one beginning on Monday in Chicago: an overseas conflict stirring disapproval at home, a wave of campus demonstrations and a new Democratic presidential nominee taking the stage.”

Featured in the piece is none other than 3RP author Judy Gumbo, founding member of the Yippie movement and author of 2022’s Yippie Girl. Gumbo speaks on the pushback protestors faced in 1968 from law enforcement, similar to the experience students have had with police during this year’s protests. See Gumbo’s excerpt below.

No retreat

The violence that erupted that week would tarnish Chicago’s reputation for decades, though Mayor Daley maintained tight control of the city until his death eight years later. For many Americans, the unrest during the convention diminished faith in the Democratic Party to preserve order in the nation. That November, the country elected Mr. Nixon president over Mr. Humphrey. But the antiwar movement continued to grow.

Judy Gumbo, a founding member of the Yippies

“The sight of the cops coming into Grant Park with their batons, slapping them against their sides and marching in, really roughing people up, doing terrible stuff to people, was an amazing sight. It was scary, but I don’t remember the scary as much as I remember the empowerment. The feeling of, ‘We are doing the right thing.'”