NPC Virtual Newsmaker: The Trial of the Chicago 7

In the summer of 1968, just a few days before the start of the Democratic National Convention and mere months after the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Chicago to protest the War in Vietnam and what they believed was a broken democratic system. What was supposed to be a peaceful protest turned into a violent clash with police and the National Guard. By the convention’s end, hundreds of protestors had been injured and arrested, and eight of the protest’s organizers were indicted for violating the Rap Brown law and put on trial. They became known as the Chicago 8 -- and after a mistrial was declared for Bobby Seale -- the Chicago 7. On February 18, the 51st anniversary of the trial’s end, Aaron Sorkin, the writer and director behind the film The Trial of the Chicago 7, and stars Sacha Baron Cohen (“Abbie Hoffman”) and Eddie Redmayne (“Tom Hayden”), will join National Press Club President Lisa Nicole Matthews for an in-depth