WBBM Newsradio 78 (AM 780) report on a 1969 peace march in Chicago. Joe Cummings reports from State Street. Audio only.
00:12Copy video clip URL Audio begins with a microphone check, followed by a Walgreen’s commercial.
00:51Copy video clip URL Cummings counts down and launches right into the news, speaking with a Major Mortimer from the Illinois National Guard at the Madison Street Armory, asking him what’s going on. The Major replies that nothing is really going on, and therefore none of the troops are on the street. The troops may be undergoing civil disturbance training. Cummings and Mortimer talk about the price of sending out the troops or not.
02:39Copy video clip URL Cummings ends the interview and mentions that the city is quiet. He does station identification. Voices follow from another source, but they’re unintelligible at first, but changes into a chant of “Peace! Now!”
03:36Copy video clip URL Cummings: “The peace march in Chicago has begun,” and goes on to explain exactly where it is. At that moment it is headed down State street. “Chicago police led the march, eight three wheeled motorcycles down State Street, followed by a large caravan of press…” He estimates the crowd to be three to five thousand people; he got that number from the Chief of Traffic.
05:04Copy video clip URL On the east side of Madison and State, a counterdemonstration is also happening. Cummings does not know exactly who they are. The march continues down State going south.
05:33Copy video clip URL Cummings notices a group of baby buggies in the crowd. He talks to one mother: “I don’t want him to go to war…I have a son. I want to keep him.” Cummings interviews a few more mothers. Many of the marchers carry whistles, which are constantly being blown.
07:52Copy video clip URL Cummings talks to a few people about why they’re marching, including a Vietnam vet. He also speaks to people who are passing out things.
10:08Copy video clip URL Cummings speaks to Liz from the Student Mobilization Committee.
12:18Copy video clip URL Cummings, on the street, guesses that ten thousand people are here “perhaps and then some.”
12:36Copy video clip URL A peace chant starts up when before it was only whistles.
12:53Copy video clip URL Cummings speaks to the “out of town contingent” of the Student Mobilization Committee.
14:40Copy video clip URL Cummings speaks with a representative of the Cleveland Socialist Workers Party, David Edwards.
15:23Copy video clip URL Cummings describes the signs he sees in the crowd. (He does this periodically.)
15:46Copy video clip URL Cummings speaks to a group, MCHR, which attends to any medical needs in the crowd if they arise. They are from the Chicago Medical School.
16:43Copy video clip URL “The marchers are black, the marchers are white, there’s no predominant factor, there are Chinese, Orientals in the march. It appears that the march is made up of mostly of young people of college age.”
17:22Copy video clip URL Cummings has estimates of ten to fifteen thousand people marching.
17:35Copy video clip URL Cummings notices a group of people from Palatine handing out daisies. Cummings then interviews random people walking by, who all say they are marching for peace.
20:07Copy video clip URL This section of tape seems to be near the end of the march.
20:20Copy video clip URL Cummings interviews Assistant Corporation Consul Richard Elrod, who sums up the event. Cummings does station identification, then all that can be heard is the sound of the crowds.
22:16Copy video clip URL Cummings interviews one of the counterdemonstrators, Bob Finley. He remembers the march of the previous year negatively, “but today we’re out here showing these people that there are people in Chicago who can’t stand them, feel they have no right to be in our city, and we also believe they’re filthy communist traitors, and there’s all there is to it.” Cummings goes on to describe the counterdemonstration tactics.
23:51Copy video clip URL The march is approaching Congress Parkway. Counterdemonstrators still harrass the marchers, but they are being kept separate by the police.
25:29Copy video clip URL Cummings interviews Deputy Mayor David Stahl: “I think it’s been orderly and without incident.”
27:08Copy video clip URL People from the Chicago Guerrilla Theatre walk past, dressed in black with white face make up. One person slowly beats on a drum. One person carries a large wooden cross. Cummings interviews one of them.
30:45Copy video clip URL End of tape.
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