Catherine Rategan 1

2008 August 27 Interviewee: Catherine Rategan Interviewer: Joy Bivins Length: 23:44 minutes Project Title: I WAS THERE: The 1968 Democratic National Convention Oral History Project of the Studs Terkel Center for Oral History, Chicago History Museum Recording title: Kirby, Mary.mp3

[begin transcript]

INTERVIEWER: We are starting to record and I'm going to say my little piece here. This interview is part of the I WAS THERE: The 1968 Democratic National Convention Oral History Project of the Studs Terkel Center for Oral History at the Chicago History Museum. If you could please state your first and last name.

CATHERINE RATEGAN: Hi, my name is Catherine Rategan.

INTERVIEWER: And if you could spell your last name for me, please?

CATHERINE RATEGAN: Catherine is spelled with a C and Rategan is spelled R-A-T-E-G-A-N.

INTERVIEWER: Wonderful. And can you state your current place of residence, city and state?

CATHERINE RATEGAN: I live in Chicago, Illinois, just about three blocks from the Chicago History Museum.

INTERVIEWER: This is Joy Bivins conducting the interview. First name Joy, J-O-Y. Last name Bivins, B-I-V-I-N-S. It is Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 3:11 and we are at the Chicago History Museum. Ms. Rategan, could you tell me about your background: when and where you were born, where you grew up, what your family life was like, and what your parents did for a living?

CATHERINE RATEGAN: Sure. I was born in Chicago at Oak Park Hospital in December of 1932 at the depths of the depression. My father, at that point, was one of the lucky ones. He had two jobs. Catherine Rategan 2

He was in a representative. He represented the district that we lived in, in the...in Chicago, down in the state legislature. And for 22 years following my birth, he was minority whip of the House of Representatives. He was a protégé of Pat Nash, who was half of the renowned, almost infamous, Kelly Nash machine that ran Chicago for a number of years. My mother was a

[Recording time: 2:00] homemaker. She had no aspirations beyond that. And I have a brother and two sisters, one of whom was cerebral palsied and passed away several years ago. I grew up with a very strong sense of neighborhood. It used to take us about 45 minutes to walk the three blocks to church on Sunday morning because my father would stop and talk to people and shake hands. And he was always running for reelection. We were always aware of the fact that my father was a public figure and by the age of seven, I knew how to accompany my father to a wake and walk up to the mourners and shake their hands and say, "I'm so sorry for your troubles." Because that was the family business-- meeting people.

INTERVIEWER: And can you just state what neighborhood you grew up in?

CATHERINE RATEGAN: I grew up in Austin; the area was Washington and Cicero, which was pretty much an Irish Catholic area. I didn't know any Jews. I didn't know any black people. Only a few Italians. It was pretty insular.

INTERVIEWER: And obviously your family had an interest in politics, but did you in particular have an interest in politics?

CATHERINE RATEGAN: I did and I still do. I can't wait to get home tonight and watch Bill Clinton and Joe Biden. I'm deeply involved in politics. I'll be at a meeting tomorrow night to listen to, actually a gathering at a bar in the neighborhood, to listen to Barack's acceptance speech. I'm just wild about Barack Obama. I'm just, I couldn't be any more enthusiastic.

INTERVIEWER: Continue, please.

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CATHERINE RATEGAN: He just, from the time I saw him four years ago giving the keynote speech, I remember thinking then, "Oh, would we be lucky if he ran for President of the United States?"

[Recording time: 4:00]

And for me this is a dream come true. I have always cared deeply about politics and I am outraged at what has happened to this country in the last eight years. I see him as someone who is able to start reversing that.

INTERVIEWER: And what were your particular interests in politics in 1968?

CATHERINE RATEGAN: I had been inactive politically for a long time and with the arrival of the Vietnam War, I started making myself more aware of what was going on. I went to Washington as part of a celebration of a, a meeting of the Americans for Democratic Action. I began volunteering for local organizations. It was in my backyard that a manifesto was presented that was the founding document for the Independent Precinct Organization, which was a spin-off of the Independent Voters of Illinois. I was also an independent precinct captain. I walked the neighborhoods around where I lived in the DePaul area, asking people to vote for George McGovern. I was out there the night that Bobby Kennedy was killed. I didn't know he was killed until one of the people whose doorbell I rang came out and said, "Lady, I think you'd better go home. Bobby Kennedy's just been shot." And I just, I was deeply disappointed by that, and I watched America descend into safety and, well, anyway, that's another subject. I just do care deeply about politics, which is one reason I was involved in Lincoln Park on the night in question.

INTERVIEWER: And can you describe your involvement, your experience, at the 1968 DNC?

CATHERINE RATEGAN: Yes. I was not in Grant Park on Wednesday night, but I lived

[Recording time: 6:00] at that point at 225 West Menomonee Street, just west of Wells Street. And I had friends who lived in the area. There were two people that I worked with, and we decided after the outrage of Catherine Rategan 4

Wednesday night in Grant Park, we decided to walk over to Lincoln Park the following night because we heard that there would be a gathering there. And we wanted to be there. We wanted to see what was going on and make our voices heard. So we started working down Wells Street, south on Wells Street, and we got to Crilly Court and we turned east toward Lincoln Park. We were met by a phalanx of Chicago cops running out of Lincoln Park. This was about 7:30 in the evening. It was still light out. And it was pretty frightening. They had their riot helmets on, although their riot helmets then were not as frightening as their riot gear is now. I've seen their riot gear now, and it's even worse. But they had their billy clubs raised and they were looking, as far as I could see, they were looking for people to use those billy clubs on. I was terribly frightened. What had seemed to be an interesting and fun evening of solidarity with people protesting the war suddenly turned very frightening. I turned and started running west down Crilly Court. I remember thinking, "They're going to run faster than I am, and I think they might very well hit me. And I just hope that they don't hit me in the face." And when it became clear that they were going to outrun me, I turned and faced into the wall of a building on Crilly Court between Wells and LaSalle Drive and they didn't, they passed by me.

[Recording time: 8:00]

And they caught up with the guy who was next to me and they...a man I had never seen before. He was probably about 21. And they chased him around the corner into an alley off of Crilly Court. I heard them hit him because the sound of a nightstick on a human skull is a really memorable sound. I had never heard it before, but I knew right away exactly what it was. And the next thing I knew, they dragged him out of the alley and down the street to an ambulance that was waiting on Wells Street. They had broken his glasses and they took his glasses off. I remember them very, almost tenderly, folding up those glasses and placing them in the pocket of his shirt. I remember he was wearing a plaid shirt. And they loaded him in the, the ambulance. After a few minutes the ambulance took off. And at that point it was clear to me that there was no more danger to me, and the police had continued on down Crilly Court and onto Wells Street. I don't know what they did there, but I ran home just a block and a half away. I was shaking and I remember thinking, "Who do I call to report a police riot?" And I didn't know, so I couldn't call anybody. But it was clear to me that what I had just witnessed was a police riot. I was unendingly grateful that I had not been hurt. But I sure had my consciousness raised.

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INTERVIEWER: And prior to that incident and that evening, had you had any other interaction with the convention itself?

CATHERINE RATEGAN: No. I did not consider going down to the armory. I didn't consider going down to, uh, the Conrad Hilton or to Grant Park. I was an activist, but I wasn't that active. But I'll have to tell you, after that, I was really active.

[Recording time: 10:01]

I protested. I took part in marches and anything else I could do and try to end the war and protest the Democratic Party, although as I remember, I would up voting for Hubert Humphrey, who was the nominee of the Democrats.

INTERVIEWER: You had three choices, correct? Humphrey, Nixon, and George Wallace ran that year.

CATHERINE RATEGAN: I had forgotten that. I had forgotten that George Wallace ran. Yeah. Boy, talk about a rock, a hard place, and a whatever else. And I just heard, the other night I heard on NPR, I heard a documentary about the convention riots. And I had forgotten that the Chicago police showed up on the floor of the convention. Daley urged them in and I don't know if they did any violence to the convention-goers or not, but what an outrage--an orderly gathering on the convention floor and suddenly the Chicago police show up? But I have to...can I tell you one more thing about the Chicago police? My brother was a cop at that point. I think he thought that he was going to be able to use my father's political influence to get himself a good assignment. Well, he didn't. He would up guarding the home of a union leader on the northwest side, just standing outside all day long with his arms crossed. He was pretty angry about that. And he told me what the Chicago police force was like at that point. Orlando Wilson had been brought in as the head of a commission to find, to clean up the Chicago Police Department. He had urged a lot of cops to inform on their brother officers because corruption was rife.

[Recording time: 12:00]

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And the police were just so paranoid at that point; they didn't know who to trust, according to my brother. And when Daley told them, when he let them loose on the convention, on the protestors, they took that as an excuse to vent their anger. Again, this is my brother's contention. They took that as an excuse to do whatever they wanted to do. I think the newsreel footage of that time and the oral accounts will show that they were hitting people who they had no right to hit. It was a police riot and it just really shamed the city of Chicago. It shamed me, too, to see that a city that I loved and cared about so deeply was just out of control. I think, I think the mayor at that time is going...that's going to taint his memory for decades to come.

INTERVIEWER: Are there any people or places or particular events that stick out in your memory from the convention?

CATHERINE RATEGAN: Um, no, because I was not involved in the convention. I was always only involved in the ancillary riot in Lincoln Park. I think I knew to stay away. I don't think I knew how deeply paranoid city officials were at that point. I was not privy to information that they had at the time that the yippies and the yuppies were going to poison the water supply, and that they were going to torch the city. And there were a lot of allegations flying around that we as citizens didn't know about. But the result of it was that, you know, it was like a tinderbox. All it needed was a spark to set it off. And it got set off.

[Recording time: 14:00]

INTERVIEWER: Did you watch the confrontation on television?

CATHERINE RATEGAN: Yeah. Yeah, I did. I was really appalled.

INTERVIEWER: Can you describe a little bit on your feelings of what Chicago was like at that time, in 1968?

CATHERINE RATEGAN: Um, well, I can tell you about my world in Chicago. I was working for an ad agency. And, um, it was like the constraints of the fifties had been loosed all of the sudden. Women started--I started--wearing pants to work. And I never went without a bra, but there was this feeling--I had the feeling, I should say--of huge potential that anything would be possible. That we Catherine Rategan 7 didn't have to play by the old rules. That feeling grew as the sixties evolved into the seventies, but it was a pretty exciting time. It was also a little disturbing at times because with some of those constraints there was...as those went, some of the safeguards went with them. So it was a very heady time. I loved the music of the protest movement--the singer-songwriters. And everything just seemed new and that anything was possible. I don't know how far that extended in Chicago; I can only tell about the group that I moved in. I was experimenting with marijuana and I felt that I was just being a very naughty person and that was wonderful. I loved that. [Laughs.] Ultimately, I found out that marijuana makes me deeply paranoid, and to me it was like having a hangover at the same time I was still drinking, so I stopped doing it.

INTERVIEWER: And how would you compare

[Recording time: 16:00]

Chicago then to Chicago today?

CATHERINE RATEGAN: I don't think Chicago then had quite come into itself as a global city. It was just starting to come into itself. I think Mayor Daley, Richard J., the old man, was a really...he had a death grip on Chicago. You didn't do anything that he didn't know about. I mean, in some ways he was almost like big brother or Joseph Stalin. And, uh, it didn't have the free and easy feeling of outdoor cafes and beautiful exteriors that it has nowadays. It was still... And of course, he had, he had locked a lot of black people away--he and the Department of...he and HUD had locked a lot of black people away in housing developments all over the city, where I think they thought that they'd be easier to control. I remember going out, walking through Gary, Indiana to try and elect a black mayor out there. And it was a completely different environment there. The housing developments there were all low-rise. We were...the mayor, by the way, who was up for election, was Richard Hatcher, who was going to be one of the first black mayors of a city, a sizeable city. I remember walking down the street with a man named Abner Mikva, who is still around. He was in the Clinton White House for about six months, a really nice man. And we were greeted as friends by the people of Gary. They invited us in for coffee. You know, there was not the feeling of being an adversary

[Recording time: 18:00] Catherine Rategan 8

that there was in Chicago, where at that point it was black people against white people. It was Cabrini Green and Robert Taylor and the anger was starting to grow. That was even before drugs were such a huge factor in society.

INTERVIEWER: And is there any lasting legacy of the convention? Do you think there's a lasting legacy...?

CATHERINE RATEGAN: Oh, sure. In fact, I've got on my Netflix list a movie, an animated film called Chicago Ten, about the trial of the Chicago Seven, really. There's a movie called Medium Cool. There are songs, and I think that Chicago still has a feeling that we've got to overcome that reputation for repression. And I think Richie [Richard M. Daley] wants to, uh, get the Olympics. I think he wants Chicago to be designated as an Olympic City, in part to erase that legacy that his father left behind.

INTERVIEWER: And do you see any similarities between the city or the nation at large in 2008 and 1968? What happened in 1968 and...?

CATHERINE RATEGAN: I think that's a good question. I think that the image...I think that the administration would still like to control Chicago's image to the world. It's very important for them to tailor Chicago's image. And, you know,

[Recording time: 20:00] in 1968, Chicago was still a manufacturing center. It was still the center of the manufacturing belt in the United States. Now, so much of our money comes from tourism. And Chicago is so much more attractive as a tourist destination than it was then. And I think that was a good decision. I mean, you can't argue with the fact that industry has departed largely from the US, in general and Chicago in particular. Tell me the question again. I lost sight of it.

INTERVIEWER: No, it was a question about seeing similarities between the city or the country in 1968 and today.

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CATHERINE RATEGAN: Well, I have to say that this Daley still runs the city with the same kind of iron fist, in many ways, that his father did. What he did with Meigs Field, um, is the same kind of thing, the same way his father would have handled things. What he's trying to ramrod through with the Children's Museum--which I think the designated spot in Grant Park is just a huge mistake-- that's the same thing his father would have done. So very much of, you know, that feeling that “da mayor” is in charge is still here, and I resent it now as I resented it then. You know, Chicago is much more attractive, as I said, much more attractive city. We've got Pritzker Pavilion. I'm going down tonight to the tango concert. I love the downtown area. I love the flowers and the way they've turned it into even more of a garden. But underneath that feeling that the people have to be controlled and also the feeling underneath that who the hell cares about black people and poor people is still there. The feeling still seems to be, in many cases, let's hide our poor and our black and our disabled

[Recording time: 22:00] people. Keep them out of sight so they don't have to bother the tourists, which is where our money comes from.

INTERVIEWER: And lastly, is there anything else you'd like to tell us about your experience during the 1968 Democratic National Convention?

CATHERINE RATEGAN: Well, I hope that today I would know who to call. Today, I would...you know, in 1968 there was no NPR. And today I would call NPR. I would contact maybe SDS or some of the other organizations that I think might be interested in that story. And I'd get active even more quickly than I did then. I was slow to react. And now the outrages that I see the Bush administration perpetrating on this country, I think there are many more channels for outrage now. I think people have become aware of the fact that your government can indeed be your enemy. I don't think we knew that in 1968. I think we still believed in the myth of the benevolent government. How could this be happening? Gee, I don't know. Well, we know now.

INTERVIEWER: Well, thank you for your time and your experiences, sharing your experiences.

CATHERINE RATEGAN: You're welcome. I enjoyed it. It was a wonderful catharsis. Catherine Rategan 10

INTERVIEWER: Thank you.

CATHERINE RATEGAN: Because I'm still mad about it.

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Transcribed by: Transcription Professionals Chicago, IL 773-334-8006 [email protected]