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| | History Channel - Speeches - Jerry Rubin, counterculture figure: Addresses the Yippie Convention |
 | | On August 26, 1968, as the Democratic National Convention got underway at Chicago's International Amphitheater, counterculture figure Jerry Rubin held a rival convention in a nearby city park. |
 | | Rubin, founder of the Youth International Party, or the "Yippies," was among the thousands of antiwar demonstrators who descended on Chicago to protest the Vietnam War and its support by the top Democratic presidential candidate, Vice President Hubert Humphrey. |
 | | Rubin's threat to spike the Chicago water system with the hallucinogen LSD had been among the factors that led Chicago's heavy-handed mayor, Richard Daley, to call in 7,500 U.S. Army troops and 6,000 National Guardsmen to back up his 12,000 police officers during the convention. |
| www.thisdayinhistory.com /speeches/archive/speech_265.html (334 words) |
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