Nearly 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans in Southern states still inhabited a starkly unequal world of disenfranchisement, segregation and various forms of oppression, including race-inspired violence.
“Jim Crow” laws at the local and state levels barred them from classrooms and bathrooms, from theaters and train cars, from juries and legislatures. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine that formed the basis for state-sanctioned discrimination, drawing national and international attention to African Americans’ plight.
In the turbulent decade and a half that followed, civil rights activists used nonviolent protest and civil disobedience to bring about change, and the federal government made legislative headway with initiatives such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
Many leaders from within the African American community and beyond rose to prominence during the Civil Rights era, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Andrew Goodman and others. They risked—and sometimes lost—their lives in the name of freedom and equality.
“Jim Crow” laws at the local and state levels barred them from classrooms and bathrooms, from theaters and train cars, from juries and legislatures. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine that formed the basis for state-sanctioned discrimination, drawing national and international attention to African Americans’ plight.
In the turbulent decade and a half that followed, civil rights activists used nonviolent protest and civil disobedience to bring about change, and the federal government made legislative headway with initiatives such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
Many leaders from within the African American community and beyond rose to prominence during the Civil Rights era, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Andrew Goodman and others. They risked—and sometimes lost—their lives in the name of freedom and equality.
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| A drinking fountain on the county courthouse lawn in Halifax, North Carolina, April 1938. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| A sign on a restaurant in Lancaster, Ohio, August 1938. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| A man drinks at a "colored" water cooler in a streetcar terminal in Oklahoma City, July 1939. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| The bus station in Durham, North Carolina, May 1940. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| A high school student being educated via television during the period that schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, were closed to avoid integration, September 1958. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| A group of people, one holding a Confederate flag, surround speakers and National Guard, while protesting the admission of the "Little Rock Nine" to Central High School outside the state capitol in Little Rock, Arkansas, August 1959. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| A young boy watching a group of people, some carrying American flags, march past to protest the admission of the "Little Rock Nine" to Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, August 20, 1959. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| School children entering the Mary E. Branch School at S. Main Street and Griffin Boulevard, in Farmville, Prince Edward County, Virginia, September 16, 1963. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| A group viewing the bomb-damaged home of Arthur Shores, NAACP attorney, in Birmingham, Alabama, September 5, 1963. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| Alabama Governor George Wallace standing defiantly at a door while being confronted by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach while attempting to block integration at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, June 11, 1963. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| Congress of Racial Equality members conduct a march in memory of those killed in the Birmingham bombings, carrying a sign that says "No More Birminghams" in Washington D.C., September 22, 1963. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| Marchers arriving at Union Station for the civil rights march on Washington D.C., August 1963. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| Martin Luther King with other civil rights leaders leaders during the civil rights march on Washington D.C., August 28, 1963. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| Marchers, signs, and a tent during the civil rights march on Washington D.C., August 28, 1963. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| Marchers with signs during the civil rights march on Washington D.C., August 28, 1963. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| A crowd of on the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial with two men in the foreground reading a newspaper with the headline "They're Pouring In From All Over" during the civil rights march on Washington D.C., August 28, 1963. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| A crowd behind a storm fence with police on the other side during the civil rights march on Washington D.C., August 28, 1963. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| A procession carrying signs for equal rights, integrated schools, decent housing, and an end to bias during the civil rights march on Washington D.C., August 28, 1963. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| Marchers arrive for the civil rights march on Washington D.C., August 28, 1963. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| A man in a wheelchair during the civil rights march on Washington D.C., August 28, 1963. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| Civil rights leaders meeting with President John F. Kennedy in the Oval Office of the White House following the civil rights march on Washington D.C., August 28, 1963. Pictured are (left to right) Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz, Congress of Racial Equality leader Floyd McKissick, National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice leader Mathew Ahmann, National Urban League executive director Whitney Young, Southern Christian Leadership Conference leader Martin Luther King Jr., Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee chairman John Lewis, American Jewish Congress Rabbi Joachim Prinz, A. Philip Randolph, Reverend Eugene Carson Blake (partially visible), President John F. Kennedy, United Auto Workers president Walter Reuther, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, NAACP executive director Roy Wilkins. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| Marchers, including white Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party supporters, holding signs reading "Freedom now" and "MFDP supports LBJ" while marching on the boardwalk outside the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, August 1964. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| A young woman casts her ballot at Cardoza High School in Washington D.C., November 3, 1964. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| Participants marching in a civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, 1965. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| A soldier standing guard at 7th and N Street, N.W., Washington, D.C., with the ruins of buildings that were destroyed during the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., April 8, 1968. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| Firefighters spraying water on shops, including Beyda's, Miles Shoes, and Graysons, that were burned during the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., April 1968. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
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| A "Don't work" sign promoting a holiday to honor the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., on a shop on H Street, N.W., Washington, D.C., April 3, 1969. (Photo by Reuters/Library of Congress) |
