Civil Rights Movement Photographs
Young People Lead the Way

High school student Genora Covington, 16, of Monroe NC standing for justice, 1961. (See Frame-up, Escape, & Exile of Robert F. Williams for the story behind this photo.)

"No Segregation Over Me"

A country store in South Carolina

Atlanta GA which claimed to be "The city too busy to hate."

One day a week for "Colored."

Making it Clear in Texas

Birmingham Alabama, date unknown.

Moveable segregation barrier on New Orleans streetcar. Date unknown.

Southern one-room, rural "Colored" school under the "separate-but-equal" dual system.

George Washington McLaurin admitted to Univ. of Oklahoma is forced to sit in ante-room apart from white students. 1950

Dorothy Davis (center) with some of the other students who are part of Dorothy Davis v County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, the suit that grew out of the Student Strike at Moton High to become one of the foundation cases in the Brown v Board of Education decision.

Clinton, Tennessee, 1956. The first Black students in the South integrate a white school.

Grace McKinley walking her daughter, Linda Gail McKinley past hostile whites to school in Nashville, Tennessee, 1957.

Charlotte, NC

Ruby Bridges, New Orleans, 1960

Prince Edward County, Virginia. Students demand re-opening of their schools which have been closed for years to prevent court-ordered integration. Closing the schools denied education to Blacks, but white children were given vouchers to attend segregated "private academies" taught by white public-school teachers.

Never let them see you cry.

High-school students picketing a segregated restaurant.
Their line is attacked by racists. See Nashville Student Movement for more information.

The police club the demonstrators. A 15-year old girl lies unconscious in the street where she was beaten down, her sister kneels beside her.

When school administrators forbid civil rights meetings in campus buildings, Claflin College students meet under the "Freedom Tree," Orangeburg, SC. 1956.

High-school students marching in McComb Mississippi, 1961, to protest the murder of voting rights activist Herbert Lee, and the expulsion of classmate Brenda Travis.

The McComb students kneel in prayer. Shortly after this photo was taken, more than 100 are arrested and charged with "Disorderly Conduct." Clearly, the only order they are "dissing" is the order of racism.

Bob Moses, Curtis Hayes, and other young McComb activists on trial.

In the dark of night, persons unknown transform the
Stop signs in an Albany Black neighborhood.

Arrested for trying to read a book in a segregated library.

Oh, freedom over me...

In another town on another day, heroic law enforcement officers apprehend yet another threat to the stability of the established order.

One Person — One Vote

Selma students sing freedom songs on the steps of Brown Chapel in defiance of the cops.

How long?