Aerial view of crowd surrounding the Chicago Hilton, August 28, 1968. Photograph by Declan Haun.

On the evening of August 28, 1968, Chicago police and Vietnam War protestors clashed in front of the Hilton Hotel during the Democratic National Convention.  Known as the Battle of Michigan Avenue, the melee lasted about twenty minutes.  The brutal scene, captured by television cameras and broadcast nationwide, stunned viewers at home as well as delegates who watched on monitors installed around the International Ampitheater, site of the convention.   The incident has gone down in history as one of Chicago’s greatest crisis—one that left long-lasting scars on its reputation and psyche.

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Father Michael Davitti, pastor of St. Therese Chinese Catholic Church in Chicago’s Chinatown.

In 1904, a community of Italian Americans on Chicago’s near South Side built the Church of Santa Maria Incoronata at 218 West Alexander Street near the intersection of 22nd Street (now Cermak Road) and Wentworth Avenue. Today, that neighborhood is called Chinatown and that church is called St Therese Chinese Christian Mission.

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You may have read that a revolver once owned by Owen Brown and stolen years ago from the Chicago History Museum (CHM) has been returned—but what’s the back story?  It begins last January, when I received an email from a lender to the Schaumburg exhibition (2007) whose nephew knew someone in Pennsylvania who had possession of a revolver that he thought may have come from the museum’s collection.  I immediately contacted the nephew who put me in touch with Michael Kraus, curator of the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum in Pittsburg, and he confirmed that a local collector had what he thought might be a revolver that once belonged to the famed abolitionist, Owen Brown.  Mike gave me the serial number, and sure enough, it matched the one in our files.

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Come this Sunday, between 10:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., to the Amistad Lowrider Car Club Car Show at 8601 West Fullerton Avenue in west suburban River Grove. The Museum is one of many co-sponsors of the event. Visitors to the show will see a great array of cool cars ranging from 1960s lowriders to muscle cars to tricked out bicycles. Gleaming paint jobs, chrome, and hopping cars will definitely be some of the day’s highlights.

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