The Urban Crisis and the New Militants Module 4 The Peoples Right to Know Police vs Reporters (1968)

Audience Score
60
The Peoples Right to Know Police vs Reporters interviews photojournalist Paul Sequeira on his experience covering the 1968 Convention and the police attempts to physically restrict reporters access

Movie Details

Theatrical Release:April 18th, 1968
Original Language:English
Production Companies:The Film Group

The Urban Crisis and the New Militants

By the late 1960s Chicago had become a battleground in struggles for social change, civil rights and against the war in Vietnam. The 1968 Democratic Party convention was accompanied by anti-war demonstrations and clashes between students and police. Civil rights marches and Black Panther groups were attempting to redefine the place of Blacks in the United States. The Film Group, a Chicago-based production company set up to create industrial films and ads, found a new purpose during the Chicago Democratic Convention in late August 1968. On a lunch break from shooting a Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial, founding member Mike Gray and his crew were shocked by police violence on the very streets where they lived and worked. Radicalized, they filmed the chaos and created their feature-length documentary American Revolution 2. From their footage grew the 7-part educational film series called The Urban Crisis and the New Militants.