Students taking a journalism history class will present research about media coverage in the ‘60s as part of the Revolutionary Decade: Reflections on the 1960s exhibit in Booth Library.

David Bell, one of the organizers, said the students are going to compare and contrast how the stories they researched would have been reported if the events happened today.

Senior journalism majors Gina Volk and Katelyn Ifft said their topics they will be talking about were hard to find articles and reports about.

Volk’s topic is about the protest that happened during the Miss America pageants. They were not just bra burners like people thought, Volk said.

“Everyone went to the boardwalk to protest the pageant and they had a giant freedom trash can and they threw in bras and stuff that represented the actual pageant,” Volk said.

They were burning these items as a message to people saying that they are not just a piece of meat and that they have rights, which was the start of women’s rights in the ‘60s, Volk said.

Ifft’s topic is about four black students in a school who sat at a lunch counter and refused to move when they were asked to do so.

They said many people in their class decided to do the moon landing and Woodstock, but the ‘60s were more than that.

“We tend to look back on [the ‘60s] with rose colored glasses and we put this filter on it,” Ifft said. “I definitely think that the topics would have gotten more coverage today.”

Volk said with the technology of today, like computers and cell phones, there are a lot more places and people who would cover the stories.

The three students, Gina Volk, Katelyn Ifft and Danielle Swindle, will be presenting their findings to the student research panel at 4 p.m. Wednesday in the Witters Conference Room 4440 at Booth Library.

 Stephanie White can be reached at 581-2812 or sewhite2@eiu.edu