"… I am convinced that the readers today are ahead of most of their papers. This spells opportunity to young men and women with the gift of communication and the curiosity and compulsion to tell the many-sided story of the complicated world in which we live." Nelson Poynter, May 4, 1961
Today’s Historical Headline: Bill is signed giving equal pay to women
President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act on June 10, 1963, to ensure wage equity and prevent discrimination in pay based on gender. Brain Pickings has a good history of the Act...

Today’s Historical Headline: Bill is signed giving equal pay to women

President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act on June 10, 1963, to ensure wage equity and prevent discrimination in pay based on gender. Brain Pickings has a good history of the Act and its legacy. 

Though the Act was meant to end wage discrimination, inequalities and paygaps remain. It’s also important to remember that the statistic about women earning 77 cents for every dollar men earn doesn’t tell the whole story: women generally earn less than men, but women of color also generally earn less than white women. And wage gaps exist even between white men and men of color; statistically, black men and white women make about the same amount of money relative to white men. Intersectionality is important. 

(Photo of Pres. Kennedy signing the Equal Pay Act, from here.) 

Today’s Historical Headline: Kennedy triumphed in California vote
On today’s date in 1968, Robert Kennedy was in California for the state’s presidential primary. After speaking to supporters at the Ambassador Hotel, he was shot in the hotel kitchens...

Today’s Historical Headline: Kennedy triumphed in California vote

On today’s date in 1968, Robert Kennedy was in California for the state’s presidential primary. After speaking to supporters at the Ambassador Hotel, he was shot in the hotel kitchens while making his exit. He later died from his injuries. 

“Kennedy was shot moments after he had gone before his cheering supporters to thank them for his victory,” read the St. Petersburg Evening Independent from that day. “That triumph, his fourth in five primary contests with Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy, had propelled Kennedy into the role of chief challenger to the administration-linked White House candidacy of Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey." 

For more, head to CBS for a report from a doctor who tried to save RFK that night, as well as a slideshow of his presidential campaign from the New Yorker. 

(Photo from here.)

Today’s Historical Headline: Kennedy asks U.S. to reach for moon
“President Kennedy set the first definite major space goal timetable yesterday - a man on the moon before the decade is out,” reads the St. Petersburg Times on May 25, 1961. The...

Today’s Historical Headline: Kennedy asks U.S. to reach for moon

“President Kennedy set the first definite major space goal timetable yesterday - a man on the moon before the decade is out,” reads the St. Petersburg Times on May 25, 1961. The beginning of the Space Race between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. was on. By July 20, 1969, the U.S. had its moon landing, though Kennedy wasn’t there to see it. 

And no, the St. Petersburg of this Times isn’t of the Russian variety - it’s the St. Petersburg of Florida, that’s also home to the Poynter Institute. The Poynter family, in fact, owned the St. Petersburg Times, which is now owned by the Institute as the Tampa Bay Times

For those of you keeping score at home, you’ll have noticed that yesterday’s paper is also from 1961, and it’s the second time in as many days that a Kennedy has made the headline. At the same time that the President and his administration had their eyes to the sky, there was a fierce civil rights battle afoot.

We think this comic (and quote) give them the equal weight they merit. 

(Photo from here.)

Today’s Historical Headline: Cooling off period urged by Kennedy
On today’s date in 1961, Freedom Riders were arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, as they tried to use a whites-only bus station facility. Part of the civil rights movement, the Freedom...

Today’s Historical Headline: Cooling off period urged by Kennedy

On today’s date in 1961, Freedom Riders were arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, as they tried to use a whites-only bus station facility. Part of the civil rights movement, the Freedom Riders, rode buses throughout the south to test court rulings that protected bus integration. Many were met with violence - and here, they were met by police forces who tried to stop their mission. 

The U.S. government, and in today’s article’s case, Robert F. Kennedy in the Justice Department, urged the Freedom Riders and others in the civil rights movement to be less confrontational in their efforts. Like Martin Luther King, Jr. said, though: Cowardice asks the question: is it safe? Expediency asks the question: is it politic? Vanity asks the question: is it popular? But conscience asks the question: is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular- but one must take it simply because it is right.

Today’s headline comes from the Eugene Register-Guard, still going to this day. 

The Freedom Riders continue to inspire others to action today, as well - like these workers who plan to converge on a Wal-Mart convention

(Photo from here.) 

Today’s Historical Headline: Former first lady remembered for her heroic dignity
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis passed away on this day in 1994. At the time, her composure after her husband’s assassination and her perseverance in raising her children...

Today’s Historical Headline: Former first lady remembered for her heroic dignity

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis passed away on this day in 1994. At the time, her composure after her husband’s assassination and her perseverance in raising her children were her legacies. Among her other accomplishments were a restoration of the White House, a U.S. showing of the Mona Lisa, extending access to the Smithsonian to presidential archives and an extensive post-White House career in book editing. 

Incidentally, today’s date is the same day that, in 1962, Marilyn Monroe delivered her famous “Happy Birthday” to then-Pres. John F. Kennedy. 

(Photo from here.)

I’m only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening, because I have some – some very sad news for all of you – Could you lower those signs, please? – I have some very sad news for all of you, and, I think, sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world; and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee. By Robert F. Kennedy, announcing that Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated, while speaking in Indianapolis on April 4th, 1968. Two months later Kennedy himself was assassinated. Listen to the speech at NPR