This Week In National Press Club History

July 7, 1983: Harry Belafonte, popular singer and social activist, speaks about human rights in the developing world at a luncheon. He appears again at a newsmaker event a decade later, one of many entertainment figures who come to the National Press Club to add their support to solutions for global problems of literacy, hunger, the environment, and nuclear weapons.

July 7, 2010: Venus Williams, tennis champion and business woman, tells a sellout luncheon that “sports will teach you how to compete, how to fight back, how to win. Sports is the ultimate way to build confidence … any athlete is obsessive and compulsive … you have to be willing to do it over and over again and do it right.” Williams also discusses her role as leader in the fight for equal pay for female players.

July 9, 1985: At a sellout luncheon, CNN and TBS founder Ted Turner denounces tactics used by CBS to derail his ultimately unsuccessful takeover bid.

July 9, 1990: Eric Friedheim makes a $1 million bequest to the National Press Club library, which now bears his name.

July 11, 2001: Dominick Dunne, author and investigative journalist, speaks at a Club book rap about his novel Justice: Crimes, Trials, and Punishments.

This Week In National Press Club history is sponsored by the History & Heritage Committee, which preserves and revitalizes the Club’s stirring history through revolving lobby displays of prominent speakers from the worlds of entertainment, business, and politics, panel discussions, events, and oral histories. For more information on the Committee’s activities, or to join it, contact Chair Gilbert Klein at [email protected].