This Week in National Press Club History

Jan. 10, 1955: The National Press Club Board of Governors votes 6 to 4, with one abstention, to admit the first black journalist, Louis Lautier of the Atlanta Daily World and the Negro Press Association, and on Feb. 4, 1955, the Club membership agrees, 377 to 281, in the largest turnout for a general membership vote in the Club’s history. Forty-nine years later, Sheila Cherry is sworn in as the Club’s first African-American president.

Jan. 14, 1959: President Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes the seventh president admitted to membership in the National Press Club. Skipping the traditional luncheon speech to go straight to questions, he remarks that he hopes, as a member, to be treated more gently than he was during his previous six years in the White House.

This Week In National Press Club History is brought to you by the History & Heritage Committee, which preserves and revitalizes the Club’s history through displays, events, panel discussions, and its oral history project.

For more information about the History &Heritage Committee and its activities, or to join the committee, contact Bill Hickman at [email protected]