Picturing Black History

Photographs and stories that changed the world

A collaboration of     and    

People’s Republic of China

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

Author of Soul on Ice and one of the most recognized activists for Black internationalism, Eldridge Cleaver went from militance to obscurity.

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

Some Black soldiers chose not to go home after the war, remaining in North Korea and China—behind the “bamboo curtain”—to escape racism in the United States.