97.9 The Hill WCHL and Chapelboro.com are your headquarters for local news and local voices in Chapel Hill-Carrboro. Every Thursday morning, local historian Scott Washington joins 97.9 The Hill’s Aaron Keck for “History Matters,” a look back at notable events and significant figures from this week in history, ranging from pioneers to writers to inventors to civil rights champions and more, locally, nationally, and beyond.

Click here to listen back to the full History Matters archive – and tune in to “This Morning with Aaron Keck” Thursday mornings at 8:30 on 97.9 The Hill to hear those conversations live.

This week, Scott and Aaron reflect on civil rights leader Bayard Rustin, whose influence was far-reaching: not only did he organize the March on Washington in 1963, he’s also partly responsible for popularizing the peace symbol – which was first displayed in London, this week in 1958. Also: Scott and Aaron discuss the first cell phone, invented 50 years ago; Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968, but also his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in 1963; and an inadvertent milestone in women’s rights, when a woman in Kansas becomes America’s first-ever female mayor after being jokingly nominated by a group of anti-feminist men.

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