David Graf on the 1960s

David Graf, Professor of History and Director of the Program in Classical Studies, gives an autobiographical sketch and memories of the 1960s. In 1967, he joined McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago and recalls seeing hippies smoking marijuana nearby and also having the Seminary taken over by gangs. Graf recollects the civil rights organization, FIGHT (Freedom-Integration-God-Honor-Today), which targeted the Eastman Kodak Company for not hiring minorities. The day after his 30th birthday, Dec. 4, 1969, heavily armed Chicago police, led by Cook County State's Attorney Edward Hanrahan, stormed the apartment rented by Black Panther Party members and gunned down Fred Hampton and Mark Clark; he later was invited to visit the house where they were murdered, and reports that the place was soaked with blood. As a result, Graf left the seminary and eventually became a professional historian.