The Conspiracy Trial of the Chicago Seven - by John Schultz (Paperback)

About the Book

"Originally published in an earlier version as Motion will be denied in New York in 1972. A revised edition was first published as The Chicago conspiracy trial in 1993 by Da Capo Press, New York, and republished by the University of Chicago Press in 2009. This edition published as The conspiracy trial of the Chicago Seven in 2020."--Title page verso.

Book Synopsis

In 1969, the Chicago Seven were charged with intent to "incite, organize, promote, and encourage" antiwar riots during the chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The defendants included major figures of the antiwar and racial justice movements: Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, the madcap founders of the Yippies; Tom Hayden and Rennie Davis, founders of Students for a Democratic Society and longtime antiwar organizers; David Dellinger, a pacifist and chair of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam; and Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, who would be bound and gagged in the courtroom before his case was severed from the rest.

The Conspiracy Trial of the Chicago Seven is an electrifying account of the months-long trial that commanded the attention of a divided nation. John Schultz, on assignment for The Evergreen Review, witnessed the whole trial of the Chicago Seven, from the jury selection to the aftermath of the verdict. In his vivid account, Schultz exposes the raw emotions, surreal testimony, and judicial prejudice that came to define one of the most significant legal events in American history.

In October 2020, Aaron Sorkin's film, The Trial of the Chicago Seven, will bring this iconic trial to the screen.

Review Quotes

"A beautiful, compelling, tear-jerking, mind-boggling book."--William Burroughs

"A masterful recapitulation of these anomalous events. . . . All politically literate Americans should read [it]."-- "Kirkus Reviews"

"If Schultz has offered us a drama that is a metaphor for this society itself, then his intensive concern with the jurors and their own special agony is its climax. His probe into their consciences--the play within the play--is a probe into the American conscience."--David Graber "Los Angeles Times"

"This work, aside from being a profound study of fear, is investigative journalism in its highest sense."--Studs Terkel

"Schultz has written one of the few great trial books of our time. Taking the reader inside a uniquely American political show-trial, he demonstrates just how fragile our courts are, and how the massive power of the federal government can easily derail justice. . . . Any reader looking for a quick course in how a criminal trial can go wrong would do well to read The Chicago Conspiracy Trial."--Timothy Sullivan, author of Unequeal Verdicts

About the Author

John Schultz (1932-2017) was professor emeritus of fiction writing and a member of the graduate faculty in fiction writing at Columbia College in Chicago. He wrote novellas, short stories, and several books of non-fiction. He was the creator of the Story Workshop method of writing instruction which he practiced at Columbia, and the founder of Story Workshop Institute, which brought the same methods to elementary and secondary classrooms.

Schultz covered the 1968 Democratic National Convention for the Evergreen Review and wrote No One Was Killed, an account of both the convention and the clashes between antiwar protesters and Chicago police. He also observed the subsequent trial of eight participants for conspiracy and inciting riot, which he recounted in Motion Will Be Denied, republished as The Conspiracy Trial of the Chicago Seven. Both books are published by the University of Chicago Press.