Picturing Black History

Photographs and stories that changed the world

A collaboration of and

labor

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

How Paul Robeson sang to 35,000 Canadians without crossing the border

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.

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