Picturing Black History

Photographs and stories that changed the world

A collaboration of     and    

Slavery, Reconstruction and Jim Crow

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.

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 Monument to Patience

It was never built. And thus, in our age of toppling monuments, it never came down. But in October 1868, Thomas Nast imagined a monument to racial violence that continues to haunt us.