Picturing Black History

Photographs and stories that changed the world

A collaboration of and

1800s

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.

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

Black Laborers on the Panama Canal

West Indian, especially Barbadian, migrant labor on the Panama Canal changed shipping routes, benefitted the U.S. economy, and affected immigration for decades afterward.