Protest Activity
The convention was targeted for widespread protests, particularly against the Vietnam War, and the Nixon administration made efforts to suppress it. In 2005, files released under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit showed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation even monitored Beatle John Lennon after he was invited to play for Yippie protests. The monitoring of Lennon later concluded that he was not a dangerous revolutionary, being "constantly under the influence of narcotics."
The U.S. Justice Department indicted Scott Camil, John Kniffen, Alton Foss, Donald Perdue, William Patterson, Stan Michelsen, Peter Mahoney and John Briggs—collectively known as the Gainesville Eight—on charges of conspiracy to disrupt the Convention. All were exonerated.
Oliver Stone's film Born on the Fourth of July, based on Ron Kovic's autobiography of the same name, depicts Kovic and fellow Vietnam Veterans Against the War activists Bobby Muller, Bill Wieman and Mark Clevinger were spat upon at the convention. The scene was actually not in Kovic's autobiography, but was taken almost frame for frame and word by word from a documentary film made at the 1972 Republican Convention in Miami 1972 titled "Operaton Last Patrol" by filmmaker and actor Frank Cavestani and photo journalist Cathrine Leroy.
Read more about this topic: 1972 Republican National Convention
Famous quotes containing the words protest and/or activity:
“I protest that if some great Power would agree to make me always think what is true and do what is right, on condition of being turned into a sort of clock and would up every morning before I got out of bed, I should instantly close with the offer.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“With two sons born eighteen months apart, I operated mainly on automatic pilot through the ceaseless activity of their early childhood. I remember opening the refrigerator late one night and finding a roll of aluminum foil next to a pair of small red tennies. Certain that I was responsible for the refrigerated shoes, I quickly closed the door and ran upstairs to make sure I had put the babies in their cribs instead of the linen closet.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)