The whole world is watching

"The whole world is watching" was an iconic chant by anti-war demonstrators outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968.

The event was broadcast from taped footage on the night of Wednesday, August 28, the third day of the convention. Demonstrators took up the chant as police were pulling some of them into paddy wagons, "each with a superfluous whack of a nightstick," [Rick Perlstein, "Nixonland", p. 324.] after the demonstration violated an 11 p.m. curfew.

The prescient and apparently spontaneous chant quickly became famous. The following year, it served as the title of a [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065211/ television movie about student activism] .

Current usage

Today, the phrase is regularly used in mainstream left movements such as the 2003 demonstrations against the Iraq War. [ [http://www.counterpunch.org/kucinich02152003.html Dennis Kucinich: The Cadence of Courage ] ] It is the title of a [http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/1515001.php 2003 book] about mass media and the New Left by former student activist Todd Gitlin. Rightist commentators have also used the phrase to argue for such causes as U.S. condemnation of Islamic violence. [ [http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200409100700.asp Victor Davis Hanson on the War on National Review Online ] ]

Origin

The origin of the phrase is unclear. The 1964 Bob Dylan song "When the Ship Comes In" contains the lyric "And the ship's wise men / Will remind you once again / That the whole wide world is watchin'." Peter, Paul and Mary, who performed for the demonstrators during the convention, [ [http://www.tomifobia.com/mahoney/chicago_1968.html Log Cabin Chronicles John Mahoney Covers the 1968 Democratic Chicago Convention ] ] covered Dylan's song on their 1965 album A Song Will Rise.

Trivia

August 28 was the fifth anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

Trivia: The band 'Chicago' has a couple of anti-war songs on their 'Chicago Transit Authority' album utilizing (what sounds like) an actual recording of the demonstrators chanting 'The Whole World Is Watching' on the tracks 'Prologue, August 29, 1968' (0:57) and 'Someday (August 29, 1968) (4:11).

Chicago - Chicago Transit Authority - Chicago Records, Inc. 1969