Watch "The Trial of the Chicago 7" on Netflix ..

[ancianita]

12. I did! I can't believe how the issues of those days are still with us.

This movie needed to be made to remind younger Americans that we boomers did fight hard.

The Hoffman/Hayden conflicts Sorkin brought up were important. What boomers learned -- that a trial can be political, that a judge can be incompetent, belligerent, not allow due process and thereby conduct mistrials -- further deepened our stands against the "law and order" types up to today.

I was 20, with a husband about to be sent as an officer to Vietnam (oh, the horrors of those draft protest days).

I kept up with the trial through the news, since no film footage of it was on tv. I was worried. William Kunstler barely managed to damp down the Hoffman/Rubin responses to the judge, and yet we loved him and considered him America's top lawyer because of his 24 contempt of court charges.

And of course I stole Hoffman's book. He was forever after that my hero in my 20's.

I was told by one of my African National Congress friends that when an activist like Hoffman is reported to have committed suicide, not to believe it. That if any police or news said my friend committed suicide, to never believe them. What happened to Hampton was bad PR for the police and FBI for years, and most of us who knew Hoffman knew that he would never commit suicide -- he was stalked, hunted, on the run, he went underground -- Hoffman was "suicided."