Picturing Black History

Photographs and stories that changed the world

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A photograph of three African American women who were identified as domestic helpers waiting for a street car, all three women are wearing coats and hats, two men and a woman who are white are also waiting on transportation, Atlanta, Georgia. 1939. From the New York Public Library.

Black Women’s Work and Leisure in the Black Mecca

Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784). Portrait of American poet seated at a desk writing with a quill pen. Undated hand-tinted color engraving with an original caption which reads: "Phillis Wheatley, Negro servant to Mr. John Wheatley, of Boston."

Picturing Early Black Women Leaders

PARIS - JANUARY 1974; Black Panther and writer Eldridge Cleaver, an exile from American justice, and wife Kathleen sit in their apartment in Paris France during their exile circa 1974

The Life of Eldridge Cleaver

Singer Mahalia Jackson speaking at the Illinois Rally for Civil Rights at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois. Over 70,000 persons attended the rally.

Mahalia Jackson and the Music of the Movement

Florida-Prisoners in a chain gang building a road. Undated photograph.

Convict Leasing After Slavery

Leaning on a porch rail, waiting for their turn at morning exercises are (l-r): 2nd Lts. Joan L. Hamilton, Marjorie S. Mayers, Prudence L. Burnes, and Inez E. Holmes. All are military nurses training to be sent to advanced posts on the Southwest Pacific.

The Integration of the American Military

Aerial shot of some of the more than 100,000 people demonstrating in protest of racial discrimination, jam Woodward Avenue, from curb to curb in a huge, but orderly "Walk to Freedom." Most of the marchers entered and surrounded Cobo Hall and Arena to hear Martin Luther King Junior speak.

Dreaming in Detroit

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater perform 'Revelations' at Sadler's Wells in London, UK, June 1973.

Alvin Ailey’s Pluralistic Vision for America

July 1972: A group of youths spraypaint graffiti on a New York wall.

The Graffiti Art Movement in Philadelphia

Photograph of Class SE 43 K newly commissioned pilots (Tuskegee Airmen) at Tuskegee Army Flying School, in bomber jackets with a fighter airplane, Tuskegee, Alabama, 1942.

Outside the Frame

Five of the 21 American soldiers who refused to return to America at the end of the Korean War. The sign on the truck reads: "We Stay for Peace." They moved to China; by the 1960s, all but two had returned home.

Black Soldiers After the Korean War

Eduardo Kobra's 'Muddy Waters Tribute' mural, part of the Wabash Arts Corridor is displayed downtown in Chicago, Illinois on April 13, 2019.

Muddy Waters: Ain’t that a Man

Paul Robeson, singer, performer and civil rights activist, is welcomed in Russia, Moscow, Russia, January 19, 1935.

Paul Robeson in the Soviet Union

Plaque à l'entrée du siège du Black Panther Party en Algérie.

The Panthers and Palestine

W. E. B. DuBois (1868-1963), American educator and writer.

The Souls of Black Folk

African-American children in a segregated swimming pool at Druid Hill Park, Baltimore, Maryland, 1955.

Members Only

January 1922: Soccer player Jack Leslie from Plymouth Argyle FC.

The Erasure of Jack Leslie

Triptych of 19th Century Feminists

The Nineteenth-Century Roots of Black Feminism

MORNING MUSTERING OF THE 'CONTRABAND' AT FORTRESS MONROE, ON THEIR WAY TO THEIR DAY'S WORK, UNDER THE PAY AND DIRECTION OF THE U.S

Journey to Freedom

In 1959, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (C) is flanked by his guests, American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King (L) and wife Coretta Scott King during a one-month visit to India at the invitation of the Gandhi Peace Foundation.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Global Dream

American gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe standing onstage, singing at the microphone with her guitar, at Cafe Society Downtown, New York City, December 11, 1940

The Godmother of Rock and Roll

Henry Brown in Box

The “Unboxing” of Henry Box Brown

Claude Brown, author of Manchild in the Promised Land, testifies before the Senate subcommittee on Executive Reorganization on the conditions of black American ghettos.

Manchild in the Senate Hearing

American Republican politician, Robert Smalls (1839 - 1915), born a slave in South Carolina, he was later elected to serve as a Congressman for his home state.

The Remarkable Life of Robert Smalls

Circa 1968: Studio portrait of American pianist and jazz singer Nina Simone (1933 - 2003) reclining on the floor while wearing a sleeveless, V-neck dress with a shell neckpiece.

Nina Simone’s Life in Music and Activism

Paul Robeson (right) sings "O Canada" with Willie Murphy(left), Mine and Smelter Union official from Vancouver, British Columbia, at the International Peace Arch on the international boundary between Canada and the United States, 1952.

A Voice Without Borders

Freedom Riders Near Burning Bus

Freedom Riders in the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

A drill instructor during an inspection of paratroopers at Fort Benning in Chattahoochee County, Georgia, 24th February 1944

Walter Morris and the “Triple Nickles” Jump into History

Portrait of African-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass

Powerful, Though Silent: Frederick Douglass’ Portraits

Graffiti covers the walls of the hotel room of Mark Essex.

The Writings of Mark Essex

Lunch Counter Protest in North Carolina

The Rise of the Student Sit-In Movement

Beauty Contest Entries And Winner

Crowning Miss Parkridge: Black Leisure in Southern California

African-American Boys in Mississippi Press Office

The Children of the Mississippi Freedom Summer

Founder of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority Norma Elizabeth Boyd, February, 1981

Norma Elizabeth Boyd, Racial Uplift, and the Divine Nine

Benjamin Mays American Baptist Minister and Civil Rights Leader at podium

Preaching with the Choir

Gladys Bentley

Gladys Bentley: Pioneering Queer Performer

The autobiography of abolitionist Sojourner Truth

The Truth and Myth of Sojourner Truth

Workers from Barbados arriving at Cristobal Port, on th SS Ancon American steamship

Black Laborers on the Panama Canal

Harper's The First Vote Illustration

Josiah T. Walls, Black Congressman from Florida

Black Panther Sample Ballot

Surviving Strategic Discontent

Huey Newton

Behind the Lens: Panthers and the Premier

Marching Mothers - Hillsboro, Ohio

Behind the Lens: Marching Mothers

Poise and Perseverance

Behind the Lens: Poise and Perseverance

Student Activists

Student Activism and the Rise of Black Studies

Picture of Bob Marley singing

A Lyrical Revolution

Hattie McDaniel

America’s Two Favorite Mammies

Alice Walker

Remembering Alice Walker’s The Color Purple

A 1906 photograph of a mathematics classroom illustrates how the Tuskegee Institute used “correlation” theory and the Sloyd system to teach applied mathematics.

Twenty-Two Divided by Seven, at the Tuskegee Institute

Sharecroppers

A Sharecropper’s Family

An 1868 political cartoon by Thomas Nast “Patience on a Monument,” depicting the horrors suffered by African Americans and the efforts by the Republican Party's Reconstruction to help rectify the injustice.

The Monument to Patience

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