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| White House and Chicago pols intertwined in the past |
So what should we think of the fact that Kennedy, if he somehow magically were still alive, would now be 100?
IT
WAS ON this date a century ago that Kennedy was born in Boston (he was 46 at
the time of his death). We’re probably never going to come to a consensus as to
how he should be regarded.
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| Chicago turned out vote for JFK |
And
we likely will forevermore dispute the significance Chicago and its electorate
played in his 1960 ascension to the White House. Or just how much in debt the
Kennedys were to Mayor Richard J. Daley in turning out the vote that put
Illinois in his Electoral College column that led to victory?
Although
the part that most astounds me over the idea of a centenarian Kennedy is that
it means his “first lady,” Jacqueline (whom we perpetually envision in her
youthful form) would herself now be 87!
Of
course, that’s not the only “anniversary” we could be acknowledging this day. There’s always the labor dispute that got ugly
in the South Deering neighborhood on Memorial Day eighty years ago.
ANYBODY
WHO THINKS that the Chicago police conduct of the 1968 Democratic Convention
protests was an isolated incident doesn’t know of the protest that turned ugly
when Republic Steel officials called the police – who then came in, began
beating picketers and wound up killing 10 men (all of whom were local residents
who worked at the plant).
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| A leftover structure from the old Republic Steel plant |
It’s
no wonder that neighborhood residents still pay an annual tribute to those who
died. And the fact that Daley himself always tried to justify the police
conduct of ’68 by saying no one was killed as a result.
Just
one discrepancy, for those who want to nitpick.
The
actual date of Memorial Day back in ’37 was May 30. So it will be 80 years ago
Tuesday that people lost their lives at a now-remote site along Avenue O.
-30-
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