This Week in National Press Club History: New Redskins Coach Joe Gibbs luncheon, 1981

April 1, 1908: The official charter of the National Press Club is signed, the main purpose of the organization to “associate ourselves for mutual improvement.”

April 1, 1983: Zambia President Kenneth Kaunda address a National Press Club luncheon.

April 2, 1981: Joe Gibbs, the newly hired head coach of the Washington Redskins, discusses his upcoming debut season at a luncheon. He leads the team the next year to victory at Super Bowl XVll over the Miami Dolphins, 27-17.

April 2, 1968: Roy Wilkins, executive director of the NAACP, discusses the findings of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (the Kerner Commission) concerning the causes of the previous year’s race riots in American cities at a Club luncheon. Two days later, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated in Memphis.

April 3, 2013: Jazz comes to the Fourth Estate restaurant. The National Press Club joins Blues Alley, Georgetown’s famous home for jazz, to host a monthly “Jazz Night” featuring members of Blues Alley’s Youth Orchestra, every Wednesday evening from 6 to 8 p.m.

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 lobby displays, events, panel discussions and its extensive oral history project.

For more information about the Committee’s activities, or to join the Committee, contact Chair Gilbert Klein at [email protected].