Will Rahm repeat  mistakes of 1968?

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Updated: February 10, 2012 8:58AM

Pop quiz! Ready? Then let’s begin.

Question: who protested in the streets of Chicago at the 1968 Democratic National Convention?

Pencils down. And no, you do not get any points for answering “protesters.”

Half a point for “young people” or “hippies,” a point off for “Communist agitators.”

For full credit, you have to know that there was a wide range of organizations demonstrating. Anti-war groups, like Mobilize to End the War In Vietnam. Wacky anarchist Yippies, radical Weathermen, and various others. At one meeting in New York in January 1968, there were 25 anti-war groups present, planning the Chicago demonstrations.

When we look back at 1968 — and we must, if there’s any hope that spring’s G-8 and NATO summits in Chicago will not turn into twin violent fiascos — we realize, with a shudder, there’s a risk the administration of Mayor Rahm Emanuel is on its way toward reprising the errors that led to 1968’s crisis

While Emanuel is — I believe — a savvier man than Richard J. Daley was, he also has the same devotion to complete control.

The 1968 violence is generally blamed on the Chicago Police — a “police riot” to quote the official post-mortem. And they certainly brought their own pent-up frustrations (hmm, sounds familiar) to the table.

“Many of Chicago’s police tended to see black and young demonstrators, just as they tended to see members of the press, as a visible sign of what was wrong in their world,” writes David Farber in his history Chicago ’68,” which should be on the mayor’s nightstand for required bedtime reading.

But the police were also merely reflecting Daley’s approach to the protests. He saw them first and last as a security concern. His goal was to put on a good show, to keep demonstrators out of sight and as far away as possible from the convention action, with plenty of cops and National Guard standing by. Daley’s idea of creative crowd control was to put coils of barbed wire on police vehicles.

Some protesters were bent on trouble — which equals attention which equals success. But others just wanted to be here. The Yippies wanted to put on a “Festival of Life,” and spent months trying to get permits from the city, so musicians could be lined up. The demonstrations could have taken place in Soldier Field and history might have been different.

But there were no permits for them.

“In a moment of unusual candor, William McFetridge, Daley’s friend and head of the Chicago Park District, remarked that Chicago simply would not make its parks available to unpatriotic groups,” Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor write in their fine Daley biography American Pharaoh. “In an era when public spaces around the country, from New York’s Central Park to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, were being used by hundreds of thousands of hippies and political protesters, Chicago’s approach opened the city up to nationwide criticism. ‘The host city, under Mayor Daley’s tight control, is showing no hospitality to demonstrations of any kind — legal as well as illegal,’ the New York Times objected in an editorial.”

Ring a bell? Emanuel stumbled out of the box, cranking up the restrictions for legal protest and punishments for newly illegal conduct, claiming they were temporary measures when in fact they are to be permanent. If he also held forth on our cherished First Amendment rights, I missed it.

Then again, the majority of Americans approved of Daley’s handling of the protests. So maybe Emanuel’s eyes are on a bigger prize.

This is not to say the welcome mat should be out for any radical who wants to put a kerchief across his face and run wild. Chicago was right to give the Occupy movement the bum’s rush. Chicago Police seem better trained now, if their conduct arresting Occupy protesters is any indication. That’s a start.

Protest is like water — it flows. And if the city tries to dam it up too completely it’ll overflow its banks. Daley proved that — he was far more responsible for the convention riots than Abbie Hoffman. The taint of 1968’s brutality took 40 years to fade; it would be a shame if its lessons were also forgotten.

Toward that end, I stopped by the parsonage of the First United Methodist Church in the Chicago Temple to talk with the Rev. Phil Blackwell, who had some intriguing thoughts.

“I am alarmed,” he said, “that the mayor and the City Council are looking at ways of restricting access to public spaces as a pre-emptory strike against what they assume is going to be the worst of all cases.”

But space grows short, so we’ll continue talking with Rev. Blackwell on Wednesday.