Slavery, Reconstruction and Jim Crow Archives

Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. waits to address the combined session of the Massachusetts State Legislature at the Massachusetts State House in Boston on April 23, 1965.

The Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Preaching peace, yet struck down by violence, the killing of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reshaped America’s urban spaces and fundamentally changed how the country remembers this civil rights leader.

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

From Phillis Wheatley Peters to Ida B. Wells-Barnett, leading Black women activists defined their public images through their portraits to advance their ideas.

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

Convict Leasing After Slavery

Slavery ended in 1865. But many Black Southerners remained unfree laborers under the convict leasing system.

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

Without images of African Americans, depictions of important military moments are incomplete.

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

The Souls of Black Folk

The life and work of W. E. B. Du Bois, writer, educator, and chronicler of Black life in America.

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

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With integration a legal right, swimming pools became a new battleground in the segregation fight.

The Nineteenth-Century Roots of Black Feminism

Sojourner Truth, Anna Julia Cooper, the National Association of Colored Women, and the foundations of Black women’s struggles today.

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

Enslaved refugees sought freedom in Union contraband camps during the American Civil War.

The “Unboxing” of Henry Box Brown

A real-life drama performed before an audience of four.

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

From daring Civil War hero to Reconstruction-era political pioneer, the life of former slave Robert Smalls was as amazing as it was significant.

Picturing Black History

Photographs and stories that changed the world

Slavery, Reconstruction and Jim Crow