Marshall University’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication sponsored a retrospective and symposium of the year 1968, Wednesday, Oct. 10, in the Shawkey room of the Memorial Student Center.

The speakers of the event included SOJMC professors Burnis Morris, Jennifer Sias, Christopher Swindell, Rob Rabe and Director Janet Dooley, as well as guest speaker Thomas J. Hrach of the University of Memphis.

“1968 was an incredible year,” Morris said. “It’s as famous for its lows as it is its highs.”

Morris introduced the audience to major events that took place in 1968. These included the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., as well as civil rights and women’s rights issues being confronted and the Vietnam war and protests.

Morris showed pictures to the audience of the events provided by the Smithsonian, and one picture showed an African American youth being searched by a Michigan state police officer after looting was still in progress, just one day after riots in Detroit, Michigan.

“Some issues just don’t go away,” Morris said.

Sias talked about Louis “Studs” Terkel, an author, historian, actor and broadcaster. The day after King was assassinated, Terkel devoted a program to him. Sias shared a conversation Terkel had with King in the home of singer Mahalia Jackson in 1964 discussing his famous speech and the civil rights movement.

Swindell shared clips of movies from 1968. These included “Planet of the Apes,” “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” “Night of the Living Dead” and “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

“I feel that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes,” Swindell said. “These movies are a presentation of black exploitation.”

Guest speaker Hrach discussed the Kerner Commision Report and his book “The Riot Report and the News.”

The Kerner Commission was an 11-member commission appointed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967.

“The purpose of the commission was to study rioting and civil unrest in African American neighborhoods,” Hrach said.

After the summer of 1967, rioting became a national crisis, Hrach said.

“It was described as the greatest national crisis since the Civil War,” Hrach said. Rabe discussed the emergence of new journalism and the six characteristics of literary journalism: A dramatic scene rather than the inverted pyramid, large blocks of dialogue, lengthy descriptions of developing characters, several sections, expressive language, and the author’s point of view.

Dooley gave the closing statements in her discussion of the powerful women of 1968 and the four waves of feminism: Women’s suffrage in the 1920s and accomplishing voting rights; economic justice of reproductive rights; ethnicity and gender girl feminism; and body positivity technology with #MeToo.

Gretchen Kalar can be contacted at [email protected].