The Chicago Eight included Abbie Hoffman, Tom Hayden, David Dellinger, Jerry Rubin, Lee Weiner, Rennie Davis, John Froines and Bobby Seale. A look at the true story of Abbie Hoffman and Tom Hayden from Aaron Sorkin's Netflix movie, The Trial of the Chicago 7. A rally at Grant Park in Chicago in August 1968 turned into a riot, with police clubbing demonstrators. “He was the one negotiating with the (Mayor Richard J.) pic.twitter.com/JGZuVg9im3. Rennie Davis. Chicago Seven anti-war activist Rennie Davis whose trial for helping organize 1968 protest featured in Netflix movie dies aged 80. Written and directed by The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin - who initially started developing the film all the way back in 2007 - the movie tells the story of the titular Chicago Seven, a group of anti-Vietnam War protestors who were … Daley administration, trying to get permits and the right to march and rally,” Farber told the AP. His mother was a schoolteacher. The Trial of Chicago 7—a new courtroom drama from writer/director Aaron Sorkin that began streaming on Netflix today—tells a story that will be new to many. I was lucky to have known and worked with him in the anti war movement for a brief period in the spring and summer of 1972 in Miami .https://t.co/h9wVCxXoSg. Mr. Davis had billed it as “the most important gathering of humanity in the history of the world” and said he expected 100,000 people to show up. But he later said that winning the 4-H Clubs’ Eastern U.S. chicken-judging championship was the proudest moment of his high school career. There he became joined at the hip with Paul Potter, a fellow student who later became president of S.D.S. In Aaron Sorkin’s movie “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” he is played by tony winner Alex Sharp. In 1970, after a tumultuous four-and-a-half-month trial, all seven defendants were acquitted of conspiracy, but Mr. Davis and four others — Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger and Mr. Hayden — were convicted of inciting to riot and sentenced to five years in prison. Smart, charismatic and a blur of energy and engagement, Mr. Davis was a leading figure of the antiwar movement. Five months later, all eight of them are arrested and charged with trying to incite a riot. Their story is a current movie. In 1968, Davis helped organize a group that descended upon the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the Times reported. Alex Sharp, far right, played Mr. Davis in the recent Aaron Sorkin film “The Trial of the Chicago 7.” Mr. Davis complained that the movie portrayed him as “a complete nerd afraid of his own shadow.”, Mr. Davis in New York City in 1972. 16 co-conspirators were also named but never prosecuted. The police estimated the turnout at 10,000, and even some of the guru’s followers began to question the young man’s lavish lifestyle, complete with a Rolls-Royce. In 1967, he and Tom Hayden, another S.D.S. Rennie Davis Portrayed by Alex Sharp in the Netflix film, Rennie Davis was a leader of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). leader, attended an international conference of student radicals in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia; traveled to Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam; and returned in time for the march on the Pentagon immortalized in Norman Mailer’s 1968 book “The Armies of the Night.”. In the 2010 film The Chicago 8 Davis was played by Bret Harrison. They were an inspiration that is needed again today.”, Rennie Davis, ‘Chicago Seven’ Antiwar Activist, Dies at 80. “The whole world is watching!” This iconic chant from the protest movement of the ‘60s is featured multiple times in Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7.” The timing of the film's release as laws against protest movements in the United States gain traction and one of the most important elections in the country’s history looms on the horizon is not a coincidence. Rennie Davis Dies: ‘Chicago 7’ Radical And TV Documentary Subject Was 80 Deadline - Bruce Haring. After graduating from Oberlin College in Ohio, Davis joined the top ranks of Students for a Democratic Society and the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, The New York Times reported. The protest was … But he was never angry or hateful. Rennie Davis: Now 80, Davis founded the Foundation for a New Humanity, a Colorado-based project to develop a comprehensive plan for a new way of living. Rennie Davis, one of the “Chicago Seven” activists who was tried for organizing an anti-Vietnam War protest outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention that turned violent, has died. Associates remember two sides to Mr. Davis. Then, in 1973, he took what many thought to be a baffling turn: He became the chief American promoter for Guru Maharaj Ji, a 15-year-old Indian billed as a “perfect master,” who claimed millions of followers around the world. Mr. Davis remained active in relative obscurity, mostly in Colorado, for decades afterward, promoting his work in business consulting, technology, socially responsible investment and various healing regimens. Davis’ wife, Kirsten Liegmann, announced his death on his Facebook page. ‘Chicago Seven’ antiwar activist Rennie Davis dead at 80, Bob D'Angelo, Cox Media Group National Content Desk, Michelle Ewing, Cox Media Group National Content Desk, Georgia couple arrested after 2-month-old baby suffers 19 bone fractures, deputies say, St. Louis Zoo welcomes baby penguin, asks public to help choose its name, Home invasion suspect fatally injured after clash with elderly South Carolina couple, Ohio woman accused of leaving kids alone in motel while she worked in pizza shop, ‘My little hero’: Illinois boy, 8, runs 2 miles to find help after car falls into ravine. The 7 (originally 8) were tried for inciting riots at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention. leaders. He was there as an organizer of protests at the Democratic National Convention and was later tried as a member of the Chicago Seven. Its story was told last year in the Aaron Sorkin film “The Trial of the Chicago 7.”. Focused and empathetic, he worked in Chicago with poor white people from Appalachia, played bluegrass banjo at parties and did much of the serious negotiating with the city for permits to march and camp out before the Chicago convention. Rennie Davis, who lived out one of the more quixotic journeys of the 1960s generation when he went from leading opponent of the Vietnam War, as a convicted member of the Chicago Seven, to spokesman for a teenage Indian guru, died on Tuesday at his home in Berthoud, Colo. And he became an international figure, on good enough terms with John Lennon that he was invited in 1971 to a recording session putting the finishing touches on “Imagine.”. His celebrity soon waned. RENNIE DAVIS, CHICAGO 7 ACTIVIST DIES AT 80-FILE WED0308-Rennie Davis, one of the Chicago 7 anti-war activists in the '60s, has died at the age of 80. DENVER — Rennie Davis, one of the “Chicago Seven” activists who was tried for organizing an anti-Vietnam War protest outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago that turned violent, has died. Rennie’s full Wikipedia entry tells the whole story. The protest was … Rennie Davis, one of the leading radicals of the 1960s and who later recapped those days in numerous television documentaries on the era, has died. He was 80. “He believed in political salesmanship, creating a kind of myth that wasn’t quite a lie but created an image of possibility, even if it wasn’t yet true.”. “I felt sorry for Tony winner Alex Sharp who played me.”), “I once told the Chicago defendants,” he wrote, “that no movie producer will ever fully capture the courage and elegance of the actual defendants. The Passing of a Legend: This is Kirsten, Rennie's wife. ... Sunday, 14 February 2021. “He deeply believed in a more just and fair and equitable society and pursued it nonviolently all his life.”, RENNIE DAVIS, CHICAGO 7 ACTIVIST DIES AT 80-FILE WED0308-Rennie Davis, one of the Chicago 7 anti-war activists in the '60s, has died at the age of 80. Rennard Cordon Davis was born May 23, 1940, in Lansing, Mich., to John and Dorothy Davis. DENVER — Rennie Davis, one of the “Chicago Seven” activists who was tried for organizing an anti-Vietnam War protest outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago that turned violent, has died. Alex Sharp Rennie Davis Sacha Baron Cohen Abbie Hoffman ... Chicago 7 is a particularly shiny rendering of history, but Sorkin wisely places the focus … leader who became a sociology professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Davis died Tuesday of lymphoma at his home in Berthoud, Colorado, his … Friends and associates said he also experimented at the time with drugs, including LSD. A longtime peace activist, Davis was a protest coordinator when some 3,000 demonstrators clashed with police near the convention in Chicago. Robert Carradine played Rennie Davis in the 1987 film Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8. Many former allies saw Mr. Davis’s mystical detour as a depressing generational metaphor. Originally called the Chicago Eight, the group was renamed the Chicago Seven when Black Panther leader Bobby Seale was tried separately. The trial arising from the “police riot” at the 1968 convention thrust him into the spotlight. Standing from left are John Froines, Tom Hayden, Jerry Rubin, Lee Weiner and Abbie Hoffman. I never thought he was ever a huckster kind of guy.”, Susan Gregory, his partner from 1969 to 1973 and a longtime friend after that, said: “He felt called to try and change the world, to end the war, to bring peace, to help people who needed help. ), The Chicago Seven trial became a seminal moment of the ’60s — part legal drama, part political theater. RENNIE DAVIS, CHICAGO 7 ACTIVIST DIES AT 80-FILE WED0308-Rennie Davis, one of the Chicago 7 anti-war activists in the '60s, has died at the age of 80. Co-defendants John Froines and Lee Weiner were acquitted, the AP reported. He was not a rabble-rouser, he was not an angry, hostile person,” Farber told the AP. ... Their story is a current movie. Plot. He was 80. ... Their story is a current movie. Following the trial, Rennie Davis’ (Alex Sharp) life went in some pretty interesting directions. “He used to say the way to organize is with smoke and mirrors,” said Richard Flacks, an early S.D.S. The members of the Chicago Seven (L-R): Jerry Rubin (1938 - 1994), David Dellinger (1914 - 2004), Lee Weiner, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, Abbie Hoffman (1936 - 1989) (Image: Getty) Rennie Davis, one of the “Chicago Seven” activists who was tried for organizing an anti-Vietnam War protest outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago in which thousands clashed with police in a bloody confrontation that horrified a nation watching live on television, has died. “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” about protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the ensuing trial, features great work by writer-director Aaron Sorkin, who is … © 2021 Cox Media Group. RENNIE DAVIS, CHICAGO 7 ACTIVIST DIES AT 80-FILE WED0308-Rennie Davis, one of the Chicago 7 anti-war activists in the '60s, has died at the age of 80. In the 2010 film The Chicago 8 Davis was played by Bret Harrison. … He was 80. “He was the hands-on organizer ... doing very practical, pragmatic things.”. Rennie Davis, one of the leading radicals of the 1960s who later recapped those days in numerous television documentaries on the era, has died. Ms. Liegmann described his time with Guru Maharaj Ji as a brief “steppingstone, a portal, that opened a massive pathway” to spiritual work crucial for human awakening. The Chicago 8: Where Are They Now? On the one hand, he was one of the movement’s most successful organizers. Thomas Hayden gives a big speech in The Trial of Chicago 7's ending, but the movie's version of events isn't what really happened. Davis died on Tuesday of lymphoma at his home in Berthoud, Colorado, his wife, Kirsten Liegmann, told The Associated Press […] Mr. Davis remained proud of his role in history and convinced of his era’s continued relevance. New Left “People went off in different directions; not everyone became the rootless cosmopolitans most of us did,’’ said Daniel Millstone, a friend from Mr. Davis’s S.D.S. However, the last man, Seale, was eventually removed from the proceedings, which dropped the total number of defendants to seven. “If there were only one road you were allowed to follow, it would have made more sense to judge him harshly. After graduating from Oberlin College in Ohio, he joined the top ranks of the activist organization Students for a Democratic Society and the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. With his wife, he led the Foundation for a New Humanity (now called Foundation for Humanity), which sold “peak performance” elixirs, touted a new approach to meditation and promised a New Humanity World Tour for a movement “larger than the Renaissance, American Revolution and Sixties combined.”. log in to manage your profile and account. Davis died at his home in Berthoud, Colorado, according to The Associated Press. The Trial of the Chicago 7 Is a Riveting Movie. Mr. Davis in 2016. Impressed by the civil rights movement in the South, particularly the 1960 sit-ins in Greensboro, N.C., and taken with a belief in the power of his generation to effect change, Mr. Davis became a full-time activist and one of the most committed S.D.S. As the energy leached out of leftist politics, Mr. Davis's promotional instincts took a surprising turn when he accepted a free plane ticket to India to learn about Guru Maharj Ji. Rennie Davis in August 1968 in Chicago. The journalist Nicholas von Hoffman once described him as “the most stable, the calmest, the most enduring of that group of young people who set out to change America at the beginning of the ’60s.”. Julian Wasser/The LIFE Images Collection, via Getty Images. He was true to that regardless what people thought about what he was doing or who he was.”. His wife, Kirsten Liegmann, who announced the death on his Facebook page, said the cause was lymphoma, adding that a large tumor had been discovered only two weeks ago. Davis was “one of the most important nuts and bolts organizers of the anti-war movement in the 1960s and the early 1970s” and an “essential organizer,” David Farber, a distinguished professor of history at the University of Kansas, told the AP. He was not ideological. Alex Sharp portrayed Davis in the 2020 drama film The Trial of the Chicago 7. Even friends who had shaken their heads at his Guru Maharaj Ji episode say that Mr. Davis had been sincere in the paths he took, that he had never turned his back on the politics and values of his youth, and that his exploratory route, moving from political activism to more spiritual and personal pursuits, was similar to that of many other members of his generation. He later said that the experience had filled him “from head to toe with light.” He became a convert and spokesman for Maharj Ji (who was born Prem Pal Singh Rawat), saying the guru’s teachings would provide “a practical way to fulfill all the dreams” of the 1960s, “a practical method to end poverty, racism, sexism, imperialism.”, At 32, he proclaimed, “I would cross the planet on my hands and knees to touch his toe.”. Robert Carradine played Rennie Davis in the 1987 film Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8. After that, Mr. Davis returned to antiwar activism, traveling again to Hanoi and going on to organize the 1971 May Day antiwar rally in Washington, which resulted in some 13,000 arrests. Federal officials charged Davis and seven others with conspiracy and inciting to riot, the Times reported. convention in 1963. DENVER — Rennie Davis, one of the “Chicago Seven” activists put on trial for organizing an anti-Vietnam War protest outside the 1968 Democratic Convention, died Tuesday. After the trial, Davis became a public speaker and aligned himself with the Divine Light Mission, a religious movement founded by Hans Ji Maharaj. What a … days. He followed his heart, his inner feeling. The verdicts were overturned on appeal, as were various contempt citations. A national commission later called it a police riot, but federal officials charged Mr. Davis and seven others with conspiracy and inciting to riot. “Everyone was trying to reinvent themselves after the stuffing of the New Left had fallen out, trying to find ways to heal their broken psyches,” the author and scholar Todd Gitlin said in an interview for this obituary in 2018, “and Rennie took the most garish, the most mockable, the most virtually self-caricatured of those paths.” Mr. Gitlin had first met Mr. Davis as a fellow student radical at an S.D.S. Nicholas von Hoffman described him as “the most stable, the calmest, the most enduring of that group of young people who set out to change America at the beginning of the ’60s.”. In addition to his wife, Mr. Davis is survived by two daughters, Lia and Maya; a son, Sky; a sister, Bea; two brothers, John and Bob; and two grandchildren. It was my honor to know them. But many also remember him as an enthusiastic promoter of causes with an elastic view of reality who believed in the importance of fudging the truth in the interest of building a movement. The Chicago Seven in 1969. In an unpublished article he wrote last year, he was critical of Mr. Sorkin’s film, saying its portrayals of the events surrounding the Chicago Seven trial and the people involved, including him, were inaccurate. “One of the things people always said about Rennie Davis was that he was a gentle man. Others, especially many of his old allies from the antiwar movement, lamented a life of great promise diverted to magical thinking and dubious causes. Alex Sharp portrayed Davis in the 2020 drama film The Trial of the Chicago 7. He told the jury to disregard Rennie Davis’ nickname “Rennie … He recalled taking what he called “a long, quiet sabbatical at the bottom of the Grand Canyon” after an unexpected business collapse in the 1990s. In 1970, the seven defendants were acquitted of conspiracy, but Davis and four others -- Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger and Hayden -- were convicted of inciting a riot and sentenced to five years in prison. He also traveled to the North Vietnam capital of Hanoi. In his later years he worked in business consulting, technology, socially responsible investment and various healing regimens. ... Rennie Davis, now 80, confirmed that while it … Learn about careers at Cox Media Group. Rennie Davis, 'Chicago Seven' activist, dies at 80. Most of the rest of Mr. Davis’s career found him trying to blend the political radicalism of his 20s with an entrepreneurial pastiche of progressive or New Age agendas. A national commission later called the clash a police riot, but federal officials charged Mr. Davis and seven others with conspiracy and inciting to riot. This station is part of Cox Media Group Television. His father was a labor economist who joined President Harry S. Truman’s Council of Economic Advisers, and the family lived in Bethesda, Md., during those White House years. As told in “Fire in the Streets” (1979), Milton Viorst’s account of 1960s radicalism, a senior year high school trip to New York City left Mr. Davis torn between remaining in pastoral rural Virginia and wanting to address the ills of poverty and race that he saw in the city’s troubled neighborhoods. He later became an unlikely spokesman for a teenage guru. See also. He was there as an organizer of protests at the Democratic National Convention and was later tried as a member of the Chicago Seven. John N. Mitchell, the Attorney General, appoints Tom Foran and Richard Schultz as … By using this website, you accept the terms of our Visitor Agreement and Privacy Policy, and understand your options regarding Ad Choices. Some admirers saw a lifelong commitment to a progressive vision taking new forms. Rennie Davis in August 1968 in Chicago. He was 80. A rally at Grant Park on Tuesday, Aug. 27, turned into a riot, with helmeted police clubbing thousands of demonstrators, including Mr. Davis, who was left bloodied, his head swathed in bandages. a fascinating obit of Rennie Davis, a brilliant mind, incredible organizing skills and a sweet, gentle man. In 1967 he joined SDS leader Tom Hayden and traveled to an international conference of student radicals in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia. Chicago Seven anti-war activist Rennie Davis whose trial for helping organize 1968 protest featured in Netflix movie dies aged 80. Movie, music and TV reviews by Matt Neal, a Rotten Tomatoes-accredited ABC Radio film critic (also an author, musician, journalist and all-round okay guy). A rally at Grant Park on Aug. 27 turned into a riot, with police clubbing thousands of demonstrators, the newspaper reported. When Truman left office — Rennie was in the seventh grade — the family moved to a 500-acre farm in Berryville, Va., in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Davis died on Tuesday of lymphoma at his home in Berthoud, Colorado, his wife, Kirsten Liegmann, told The Associated Press […] (“I was portrayed as a complete nerd afraid of his own shadow,” he complained. The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. The Life and Times of One of the Chicago 7. The guilty verdicts were overturned on appeal. He was student body president and played varsity basketball in high school. (In the end, Mr. Seale was never tried. From left: Abbie Hoffman, John Froines, Lee Weiner, David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Tom Hayden. That movement peaked with an underwhelming turnout at an event called Millennium 73, held at the Astrodome in Houston in November 1973, where Guru Maharj Ji appeared in a glittering silver suit on a blue plexiglass throne. The Chicago 7 give a press conference in October 1969. Rennie Davis, ‘Chicago Seven’ activist and leader of New Left, dies at 80 Three members of the Chicago Seven — Mr. Davis, center, with Abbie Hoffman, left, and Jerry Rubin — … Davis voices himself in the 2007 animated documentary Chicago 10. That experience led to Chicago, where Mr. Davis helped organize a motley assemblage of antiwar activists, political radicals and the theatrical revolutionaries known as Yippies with the aim of descending on the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Liegmann said the cause of death was lymphoma, adding that a large tumor was discovered only two weeks ago. While many ’60s radicals were growing up in cities or suburbs, Mr. Davis spent much of his youth in an idyllic rural setting. Seated are Mr. Davis (left) and David Dellinger. Davis voices himself in the 2007 animated documentary Chicago 10. They went from being called the Chicago Eight to the Chicago Seven after the case of one of them, the Black Panther leader Bobby Seale, was severed from the others. Davis was born May 26, 1940, in Lansing, Michigan, and was raised in Berryville, Virginia. The 7 (originally 8) were tried for inciting riots at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention. The results played out like an improvisation on ’60s themes, leading to divided opinions about him. Rennie Davis Dies: 'Chicago 7' Radical And TV Documentary Subject Was 80 Danny Ray Dies: James Brown's 'Cape Man' Routine Assistant Was 85 … Seale was convicted but had his verdict overturned on appeal. In August 1968, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, Lee Weiner, John Froines, and Bobby Seale make preparations to protest at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He turned down a scholarship to study animal husbandry at Virginia Tech and instead enrolled at Oberlin in 1958.

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