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Civil Rights -- A Long Road

by The Library of Congress

Photographers working in the 1930s and 1940s for the Farm Security Administration documented social and economic conditions experienced by African Americans that called out for redress. In the following decades, news photographers and participants captured many facets of the evolving civil rights movement. This album does not include the most iconic photographs from the era, most of which may still be under copyright. But it does show the many people and approaches involved in the campaign for equality in its most dramatic moments as well as its quieter ones.

Learn More:

• Explore a new online exhibit at the Library of Congress: “The Civil Rights Act of 1964”

• View a selection of images: “The Civil Rights Era in the U.S. News & World Report Collection” on the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division site.

• Look through photographs made by Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information photographers of the many locations where people encountered signs enforcing racial discrimination in the 1930s and '40s.

20 photos · 10.8K views

Negro drinking at "Colored" water cooler in streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (LOC)

Washington, D.C. Government charwoman (LOC)

Little Rock, 1959. Mob marching from capitol to Central High (LOC)

Little Rock, [Arkansas]. Filming high school classes (LOC)

Civil rights march on Wash[ington], D.C. (LOC)

[Signs carried by many marchers, during the March on Washington, 1963] (LOC)

[Young men participants in the March on Washington playing chess on the grass] (LOC)

[Civil rights leaders talk with reporters after meeting with President John F. Kennedy after the March on Washington, D.C.] (LOC)

[Civil rights leaders meet with President John F. Kennedy in the oval office of the White House after the March on Washington, D.C.] (LOC)

[Group of African Americans viewing the bomb-damaged home of Arthur Shores, NAACP attorney, Birmingham, Alabama] (LOC)

[African American school children entering the Mary E. Branch School at S. Main Street and Griffin Boulevard, Farmville, Prince Edward County, Virginia] (LOC)

Congress of Racial Equality conducts march in memory of Negro youngsters killed in Birmingham bombings, All Souls Church, 16th Street, Wash[ington], D.C. (LOC)

Martin Luther King press conference (LOC)

[African American and white Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party supporters holding signs reading "Freedom now" and "MFDP supports LBJ" while marching on the boardwalk at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, Atlantic City, New Jersey] (LOC)

D.C. riot. April '68. Aftermath (LOC)

[Participants, some carrying American flags, marching in the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965] (LOC)

H. Rap Brown, SNCC [i.e., Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee], news conf[erence] (LOC)

SCLC housing for poor people (LOC)

Poor People's March at Lafayette Park and on Connecticut Avenue (LOC)

Reverend Jessee [i.e., Jesse] Jackson's march for jobs -- around the White House (LOC)