Memories of protest reporting in 1972: Pickets, parks and pepper spray

It was a dark and stormy night.

But it had nothing to do with the weather.

On Aug. 20,1972, this reporter was assigned to cover the hordes of hippies, yippies, women’s libbers, Marxists, gay rights advocates, Black Panthers, and anti-Vietnam war vets tenting, talking, and toking it up in Miami’s Flamingo Park the night before the Republican National Convention kicked off.

This year’s images of protesters taking over college campuses brought it all back.

It was quite a night in Flamingo Park in ‘72. And the next day I got sprayed with pepper gas covering a march. That was awful. More on that in a bit.

But that night before the convention’s opening gavel was a gas itself.

Thousands of dissenters were permitted to sleep in the large city park, quickly shrouding it in pot smoke so thick the Miami cops claimed they could identify six different cannabis varieties.

It was also a hot and humid assignment. So, I selected stuff from my weekend “hippie” closet: a “yippie” head bandana, nondescript shirt and shorts, and “hippie” sandals.

The park’s new grunge guests may have huddled and hollered, but they also painted every piece of concrete they could find with letters of “love”— or destruction.

Tinsel town cameos?

And cue the movie stars! Actress/anti-war objector “Hanoi Jane” Fonda arrived to speechify in a military jeep. Not to be outdone, actor John “The Green Berets” Wayne, an outspoken supporter of the war, showed up at the Miami airport to greet President Richard Nixon on his arrival to accept his re-nomination at the convention.

And, yes, there was levity.

A member of Students for a Democratic Society, an organization of college kids opposing the war, had an unusual demand. He insisted on the removal of a protective “free from male aggression” rope fence around the women’s liberation tent.

“We are supposed to be progressive,” Joe Wouk, an SDC member complained to me. “Women’s rights is a real issue, and they should be mobilizing MEN to fight with THEM to get the unity they need!”

Several men had been tossed out of the tent by women the night before.

“We are prepared to use any force to keep these MEN out, except, of course, the use of male policemen,” the director of the Miami Women’s Coalition declared.

Later, we would chuckle over news that Miami’s colorful police chief, Rocky Pomerance, was so eager to avoid a repeat of the anti-war protest riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago that he had sent his officers to a human relations course in advance of the ’72 convention. Cop’s cursing and spitting was dubbed a no-no retaliatory tactic.

Not Rocky’s first rodeo ...

The Republicans had also held their national convention in Miami in 1968. And the Democrats held their’s in Miami in 1972, about six weeks before the GOP came to town.

Those had been largely free of major protest skirmishes.

Not this time.

On Aug. 21, 1972, all hell broke loose when protesters in painted death masks headed to the convention center to taunt the RNC delegates — who labeled them “The Great Unwashed.” The demonstrators smashed windows as they marched en masse down Collins Avenue, Miami’s main thoroughfare.

A live elephant, the symbol of the GOP party, was also pressed into action outside the convention center that night to haul a cart carrying a coffin.

With Black Panther Party chairman Bobby Seale leading demonstrators in chanting “One, Two, Three, Four … We Don’t Want The f------ war,” antiwar Vietnam vets marched to the convention headquarters.

Memories best left in Miami …

But it was while I was hustling to keep up with demonstrators that afternoon, my notebook in hand, that I got hit by the pepper gas.

Cops sprayed the crowd of us, oblivious to whether any reporters or other bystanders got gassed.

For all they knew I was one of the marchers. It didn’t matter. Pepper gas doesn’t care, either.

I couldn’t breathe. I remember going down on my knees. I couldn’t walk.

But as awful as that was, I did keep working that day, even attending the convention that evening.

A day after the convention ended, it was reported 900 demonstrators had been arrested, and 52 people injured, including 12 cops.

Looking back, it was the night in Flamingo Park I remember most … despite getting pepper gassed the next day.

I can still hear the moans and groans of protesters attempting to sleep on dirt and concrete. I remember thinking maybe the hippies were getting tired, flower children finally beginning to wilt.

Ironically, Nixon would give them a rest. Reelected that November, Nixon brought an end to the Vietnam war the next year.

Sneedlings …

My dog, the terrific and sometimes terrible Tutu, will no doubt do what she has always done when a buzzing cicada crawls up the screen on my back porch. Do what she is told not to do. Eat ‘em. Yum. … A sad music note for fans of the incomparable ‘60s folk trio The Limeliters: The last member, University of Chicago attendee Alex Hassilev, has died. End of an era.

Saturday birthdays: Pia Zadora, 70; actor Will Arnett, 54; singer Randy Travis, 65; actor Ruth Negga, 43 … Sunday birthdays: newsman Brian Williams, 65; actor Richard E. Grant, 67; singer Adele, 36.