OLD TOWN — In 1968, Lincoln Park was a rallying point for protesters at the National Democratic Convention.
On some nights the fields were filled with tear gas and violence as police cleared protesters from the park.
Nearly 50 years after the protests and clashes that drew national attention, the Chicago History Museum is hosting an exhibit documenting the tumultuous year a stone's throw from where those clashes occurred.
"The Chicago History Museum, then known as the Chicago Historical Society, was definitely in the thick of things at the time," said Joy Bivins, curator of "The 1968 Exhibit," which is set to open Saturday.
The exhibit is broken up into sections by month, highlighting the conflict in Vietnam, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, the Apollo 8 mission around the moon and the killing of Robert F. Kennedy.
The exhibit features a purple velvet jacket and cowboy boots worn by Jimi Hendrix, a full-sized replica of the Apollo 8 spacecraft, an Olympic torch and countless artifacts including a Chicago Police Department helmet and billy club used in the clashes with protesters in the park.
There are interactive lounge areas that focus on music, design, movies and television.
The experience begins in January with an authentic Huey helicopter that "landed" in an American living room where a television set plays clips from the Vietnam War.
The exhibit contains a working 1968 pull-lever voting machine where guests can step inside a curtain and pull for their preferred candidate. The votes are tallied on a flat screen above the machine.
There are a number of audio and video elements to each month's displays.
For the month dedicated to the Democratic National Convention, the museum includes audio quotes gathered back in 2008 from Chicagoans across the city who were affected or had a role in the events, including police officers, people from the convention floor and others who lived in the neighborhood.
"It was really a moment where Chicago was the center of attention for the nation," Bivins said. "Not only do you have these riots or uprising or clashes between protesters and police happening in the streets of downtown Chicago, but you also have an uneasiness on the floor of the political convention.”
During the exhibit's limited run, the museum is hosting several events, including a panel discussion with journalists Bill Kurtis and Laura Washington Nov. 5 and a bus tour of places of significance to the 1968 Democratic National Convention, along with an expert guide Oct. 18.
"Ultimately, I want people to understand how much they are involved in history and that their lives could one day be part of a historical exhibition, as well," Bivins said. "I don’t think the young people who were protesting or working so hard to change things were thinking 50 years from now we would be looking at their lives as historic events.”
"The 1968 Exhibit" opens Saturday at runs through Jan. 4 at the Chicago History Museum, 1601 N. Clark St.
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