Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Available On Air Stations
Watch Live

'Today In 1968' Replays A Historic Year — On Twitter

Tommie Smith and John Carlos, gold and bronze medalists in the 200-meter run at the 1968 Olympic Games, raise their fists to protest the inequity and discrimination that black people in the U.S. face.
Bettmann Archive Getty Images
Tommie Smith and John Carlos, gold and bronze medalists in the 200-meter run at the 1968 Olympic Games, raise their fists to protest the inequity and discrimination that black people in the U.S. face.

There's no question that 1968 was a pivotal year in civil rights history. In 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated as he stood on the balcony of a hotel in Memphis; the Fair Housing Act was passed; two U.S. athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, took a stand and raised their fists in a monumental salute at the 1968 Summer Olympics; and Star Trek aired the first intergalactic and interracial on-screen kiss. All this, while the U.S. was embroiled in the Vietnam War.

Now, 50 years later, a team of NPR research librarians, social media producers and reporters are capturing those moments and more with our Twitter project, @todayin1968. Through that account, we'll tweet news and articles from 1968 as if it were all happening today. In addition to major events, we'll share "everyday" parts of life — like the change in price for stamps or Billboard hits.

This is a revival of NPR's project from five years ago, @todayin1963.

Advertisement

Follow along on Twitter as we rediscover 1968. Let us know if there are any key dates, events or people that we should be on the lookout for. Send us a tweet at @todayin1968.

Here are some tweets from @todayin1968:

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.