How Did The Chicago Seven Affect The Civil Rights Movement?

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The 1960’s in American History is undoubtedly one of the most important decades and is easily one of the most important times in the development of our nation. Political outrage seemed to grow rapidly amongst many communities like the Bay of Pigs incident, the African-American civil rights movement, and, in specific the anti-war movement created by a group of radicals, The Chicago Seven. This group was made up of seven men Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, and Lee Weiner. Abbie Hoffman, the leader of The Chicago Seven, created protest against racism, war, capitalism, greed, polluting industries, and moral puritanism.(Engelbert 258). Hoffman began to unite people together under one same cause, …show more content…

Especially April 4, 1968 when Dr. Martin Luther King was shot dead, the Chicago Seven were not the only radicals protesting for human rights in American society. This allowed for activist organization to unify together in order to fight a similar cause for their country. Which was to allow rights to be applicable to everyone not just the American government. One day before the protest occurred many people petitioned in order to march a couple of blocks away from where the convention was being held, but all petitions to protest were ignored. Although The Chicago Seven knew that their petitions were being ignored the still decided to lead group of activist to protest right in front of where the National Democratic Convention was being held. Because they felt people were ignoring the decision made from former president Lyndon B. Johnson for the Vietnam War. “Wanted the world to know that there are thousands of young people in this country who do not want to see a rigged convention rubber-stamp another four years of Lyndon Johnson's war”(Stanley). This shows how people just wanted to see change in their communities, much like how many people are waiting for someone to stand up in order to cause more people to get involved in a movement. Rebelling is the first step when a group of activist or reformers want to some sort of change in their community, and this is exactly what the …show more content…

All members of the Chicago Seven received court, but the most interesting out of all of them was probably Abbie Hoffman. Hoffman employed the same antics in the courtroom as he had in the streets, turning the trial into one of the most celebrated examples of political theatrics in US history (Sawinski). Brought against activists who participated in anti-Vietnam War protests at the Democratic National Convention in 1968, the federal case offered an opportunity for defendants including Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin to create a media circus, and they took full advantage of it.
The media was really involved with this case, and many Americans had different opinions on what should happen to all the defendants, and of course the final decisions was that they were found guilty of conspiracy. Although, nothing much really happened after they got arrested it important to understand a couple of things.
First, the Chicago Seven did not work alone and therefore did cause change in the world because of all of the people that got involved who wanted change. In today's world we could possibly be in need of a second Chicago Seven because of all the military conflicts occurring around the world fighting

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