The Trial of the Chicago 7 is streaming on Netflix now, and sees director and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin tell the true story of the eponymous Chicago 7, a group accused of inciting riot after clashes between police and protesters erupted during the 1968 Democratic National Convention
The movie, however, focuses entirely on the court case and the events at the DNC leading up to it, which means we only get a small detail of what happened to Abbie Hoffman (played by Sacha Baron Cohen), Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong), David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch), Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne), Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp), John Froines (Daniel Flaherty) and Lee Weiner (Noah Robbins) after the trial
As you would expect from a movie like this based on actual historical events, at the end we get title cards detailing the aftermath of the events depicted in the movie. However, they only give us a few details about what happened next
These title cards read in part: « Abbie Hoffman, Tom Hayden, David Dellinger, Jerry Rubin and Rennie Davis were convicted of inciting riot and sentenced to 5 years in federal prison
« The verdict was overturned by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and a new trial ordered
The title cards tell us: « Jerry Rubin became a stockbroker, In 1994 he was hit by a car and killed while walking near the UCLA campus »
After co-founding the Youth International Party (Yippies) and Chicago 7, Rubin retired from politics in the mid-1970s and became a businessman. Among his major investments, he was one of the first investors in Apple and became a multimillionaire in the late 1970s.
In the 1980s, he and his friend Abbie Hoffman embarked on a « Yippie vs Yuppie Debating Tour » in which Rubin argued for his newly discovered monetarism over Hoffman’s continued belief in their old ideals.
He became a stockbroker on Wall Street in 1980, becoming one of the early advocates of business networking He also got involved in multi-level marketing, including for a health drink that counted the Rubin’s former co-accused, Bobby Seale, as one of his salespeople
After being hit by a car in 1994, he died at UCLA Medical Center of a heart attack two weeks after the accident
The Trial of the Chicago 7 title card on Hoffman reads: « Abbie Hoffman has written a bestselling book, although the number of copies in circulation is unknown as the title is Steal This Book It’s committed suicide in 1989 «
After the Chicago 7 trial, Hoffman remained a counter-cultural icon, although controversial Among those he managed to annoy were the group The Who, whose performance at Woodstock he interrupted in protest against the imprisonment of the leader of the White Panther Party, John Sinclair He would later say he was on a bad trip with LSD at the time
In 1973 he was arrested again, this time for intent to sell and distribute cocaine.He lived in disguise and under a false name for six years to escape this charge after he skipped bail, not recovering until 1980 He then served four months of a one-year sentence
In 1986 he was again arrested for trespassing at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in protest against CIA recruiting He was acquitted after defending himself in court
At the age of 52, nine years after being diagnosed with bipolar, Hoffman committed suicide by overdosing He was found surrounded by hundreds of pages of handwritten notes At the time of his death his FBI file counted more of 13,000 pages Among those who attended his funeral were the co-defendants in the Chicago 7 trial Rubin and David Dellinger
The title cards of the Netflix movie tell us: « Tom Hayden was elected to the California State Legislature in 1982 He was re-elected 6 more times »
The Students for a Democratic Society member was a member of the California State Assembly from 1982 to 1992, then a member of the California Senate from 1992 to 2000 Among his accomplishments was the Hayden Act, a draft animal rights law that increased the protection of pets
He has also written and edited nearly 20 books in his life and was married to actor and fellow activist Jane Fonda for 17 years. The couple had one child (Ballers actor Troy Garity) and Hayden had another child with third wife Barbara Williams
Although he received less press attention than Rubin or Hoffman, the judge thought Dellinger had been most guilty and handed him the harshest sentences (although he was acquitted more The radical pacifist continued his activism after the Chicago trial 7 He also became a teacher in Vermont in the 1970s, wrote four books, and in 1969 and 1972 traveled to Hanoi to help bring back prisoners of war In 1996, at that year’s DNC in Chicago, he was arrested again (alongside Abbie Hoffman’s son) while participating in a sit-in)
After the trial, Davis found spirituality and joined the Divine Light Mission religious group, becoming a disciple of its leader Guru Maharaj Ji
Like Rubin, however, he also found capitalism, becoming a venture capitalist as well as a meditation speaker
As seen in The Trial of Chicago 7, Froines was one of two acquitted defendants He went on to become a renowned chemist, teaching at Goddard College in Vermont, before being appointed director of the Center for Occupational Health from UCLA, then later Director of Toxics for OSHA He retired in 2011
After being acquitted, Weiner continued his involvement in the protests, working for the Anti-Defamation League as well as AmeriCares. Earlier this year he wrote a book on the lawsuit, titled Conspiracy to Riot: The Life and Times of One of the Chicago 7
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The Chicago 7 Trial
World News – UA – What Happened to the Chicago 7 After the Trial?
