I never feared for my life during the attacks. I think it must be like a soldier in a war zone. Your adrenaline is so high that you’re not thinking those thoughts. I’m being clubbed and slugged; I was gassed. The gassing seemed perpetual. The officers seemed to be just wantonly beating people. It was without boundaries. I was arrested twice in two days. I don’t know if my body or lungs could withstand it today. When you’re young, the body seems to want to survive. —Tom Hayden was co-founder of the Students for a Democratic Society, and one of the organizers of the anti-Vietnam War demonstration outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968. Now a writer and researcher, he teaches sociology at Pitzer College in Clairmont, California, and is a member of the editorial board of The Nation. … Back to Article