Never-before-released video of the Chicago Eight now brought to the public eye after 50 years

Aaron Sorkin’s recent film, The Trial of the Chicago 7, has revived interest in the historical events which took place in Chicago between 1968 and 1970.

During the entire trial between September 1969 and February 1970, seven of the eight defendants (Bobby Seale had been removed from the trial and left Chicago) gathered as a complete group only twice. The following video is a documentation of one of those two occurrences. R.G. Davis, founder of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, was friends with the defendants. He brought them together in a television studio in January, 1970. This remarkable video has never been shown publicly.

This video is an hour of unedited, uninterrupted dialogue among R. G. (Ronnie) Davis and the seven defendants including Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, and Lee Weiner. Over the course of an hour, the defendants discuss the injustices of the US court system, the tactics of protest and revolution, and the prevailing problem of systemic racism—all issues which are highly relevant to the contemporary era.

This video has never been released and therefore, it is with great excitement that Media Burn can bring this treasure to the public 50 years later.

To learn more, we have compiled a list of videos and books about the Chicago Conspiracy Trial. You can view the list below or with images on Google Docs with the following link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/143dI7vD4lHRdhRE8Nj4Ax0IT4HrQFlJv/view