“You Are a Disgrace, Sir, I Say You Are a Disgrace, I Really Say You Are a Disgrace”: The Voice of Antiwar: Rennie Davis

Abstract

Rennie Davis was the chief organizer of the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention and one of the leaders of the antiwar faction of the defendants now on trial—the other key defendants in this group being David Dellinger and Tom Hayden. Although all the defendants were opposed to the war, these three defendants were directly involved as leaders in antiwar organizations. Unlike Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, who adopted a more theatrical form of protest aimed to inspire a youth culture, Davis’ primary focus was on ending the war. Consideration of the New York Times’ reporting on Davis’ evidence is central to an understanding of the paper’s representation of the trial. One of the central aims of the defendants in the case was to bring the war into the courtroom. As Davis recalled it, for him “the more serious communication of the inappropriateness of the war and what to us was the real issue in the trial was what we wanted to present.” A focus on Rennie Davis’ evidence allows us to consider the extent to which the New York Times was willing to represent a chief aspect of the defense strategy to make the trial about the war. To what extent was the paper willing to give coverage to Davis’ views about the relevance of the war to the case? Were Davis’ views heard, or was his more radical critique of American actions in Vietnam silenced in the same way that Bobby Seale’s voice was silenced by the paper earlier in the case?

Rennie Davis to Judge Hoffman at Trial Transcript, p. 18397.