David Dellinger

David Dellinger

David T. Dellinger was an American radical pacifist and an activist for nonviolent social change. He achieved peak prominence as one of the Chicago Seven, who were put on trial in 1968. One of the high points of this trial was Dellinger’s claim that he and several others had conspired to cross state lines with the intention of inciting a riot.

About David Dellinger in brief

Summary David DellingerDavid T. Dellinger was an American radical pacifist and an activist for nonviolent social change. He achieved peak prominence as one of the Chicago Seven, who were put on trial in 1968. One of the high points of this trial was Dellinger’s claim that Dellinger and several others had conspired to cross state lines with the intention of inciting a riot. On February 18, 1970, they were acquitted of the charge of conspiracy, but five defendants, including Dellinger, were convicted of crossing state lines to incite a riot, along with Abbie Hoffman, A. J. Muste, Greg Calvert, James Bevel, David McReynolds, and Julius Hoffman. The case was turned by Dellinger into a nationally publicized platform for putting the Vietnam War on trial, with the help of the FBI’s bugging of the Center for Inquiry, and resulted in the acquittal of the five defendants and the acquittals of the rest of the group.

The trial was held at the University of Chicago, where Dellinger studied at Yale University and Oxford University, and he also studied theology at Union Theological Seminary. He had contacts and friendships with such diverse individuals as Eleanor Roosevelt, Ho Chi Minh, Martin Luther King Jr. and numerous Black Panthers such as Fred Hampton. In 1966 Dellinger travelled to both North and South Vietnam to learn first-hand the impact of American bombing.