Main Street Nashville
NASHVILLE WEATHER

Nashville Banner front page on June 1, 1961




June 1, 1961

June 1, 1961

Editor’s note: Main Street Nashville reprints some of the best front pages from the Nashville Banner, an afternoon newspaper that published from 1876 to 1998. The pages are courtesy of the Nashville Public Library, Nashville Banner Collection.

60 YEARS AGO IN THE

NASHVILLE BANNER

Global news dominated the front page of the June 1, 1961, Nashville Banner. Two days before, Dominican dictator and military strongman Rafael Leonidas Trujillo was ambushed in his car and assassinated. The political heirs of Trujillo — who served as president from 1930 to 1938 and again from 1942 to 1952 — appeared to still be in control of the Dominican Republic, but a power struggle was expected.

In local news, Nashville residents went to the polls, where they were expected to narrow 141 City Council candidates down to a field of 18. Because candidates must claim a majority of the votes to be elected, officials predicted a runoff election would be necessary in all of the nine new districts.

 

 

In a move that would be considered highly unusual for a newspaper today, the Banner published above its masthead a quotation attributed to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev next to the words “Know your enemy.” The quote said, “Whether you (the United States) like it or not, history is on our side. Just as capitalism replaced feudalism, so will communism be victorious. WE WILL BURY YOU! … Your grandchildren will grow up under communism.”

In recent years, articles by Reuters, Snopes and PolitiFact disputed that Khrushchev made a similar insidious comment about “gullible” Americans being fed “small doses of socialism.”

Leave a Reply