William Jennings Bryan delivered his " Cross of Gold " speech at the 1896 convention . The most historically notable — and tumultuous — convention of recent memory was the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago , Illinois , which was fraught with highly emotional battles between conventioneers and Vietnam War protesters and an outburst by Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley . Other confrontations between various groups , such as the Yippies and members of the Students for a Democratic Society , and the Chicago police in city parks , streets and hotels marred this convention . Following the 1968 convention , in which many reformers had been disappointed in the way that Vice President Hubert Humphrey , despite not having competed in a single primary , easily won the nomination over Senators Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern ( who announced after the assassination of another candidate , Senator Robert F. Kennedy ) , a commission headed by Senator McGovern reformed the Democratic Party 's nominating process to increase the power of primaries in choosing delegates in order to increase the democracy of the process . Not entirely coincidentally , McGovern himself won the nomination in 1972 . The 1972 convention was significant in that the new rules put into place as a result of the McGovern commission also opened the door for quotas mandating that certain percentages of delegates be women or members of minority groups , and subjects that were previously deemed not fit for political debate , such as abortion and lesbian and gay rights , now occupied the forefront of political discussion
1968 Democratic National Convention
1968 Democratic National Convention
Democratic National Convention