NAACP chief Executive Roy Wilkins presents the Freedom Bell Award to Federal Judge Thurgood Marshall.
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Elizabeth Eckford in front of Little Rock Central High School, 4 September 1957.
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A portrait of Mamie Bradley and her son, Emmett Till, taken before Emmett left for Mississippi. 1955.
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The murderers of 14-year-old Emmett Till after they learned of their acquittal, September 23, 1955.
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Mamie Bradley as she meets the casket of her son in Chicago, September 4, 1955.
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Mamie Bradley, Emmett Till's mother, at her son's funeral in Chicago, September 6, 1955.
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Mo Wright, Emmett Till's uncle, waits to testify against the two white men who brutally murdered his nephew, September 25, 1955.
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Rosa Parks being interviewed with Pullman Porter union leader E. D. Nixon outside a Montgomery courthouse, March 19, 1956.
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Churches played a key role in organizing the boycott. Here, Martin Luther King Jr. is encouraging churchgoers to continue the boycott. 1956.
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Thousands of black commuters are shown walking long distances to work instead of riding the buses during the Montgomery bus boycott. 1956.
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Following the Greensboro sit-ins, students all over the nation organized and participated in sit-ins of lunch counters, department stores, and public shopping centers.
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Freedom riders sit outside a bus firebombed by white Southerners trying to deter the interracial group of activists from traveling through the south, May 15, 1961.
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A 17-year-old boy, who refuses to yield to the city ordinance that denied city residents the right to public parades, is attacked by police dogs in Birmingham, Alabama, May 4, 1963.
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On May 2, 1963, thousands of children and teenagers peacefully marched down the streets of Birmingham to protest the city's segregation ordinances.
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During desegregation protests in 1963, city officials, at the order of the police commissioner Eugene "Bull" Conner, used fire hoses and clubs on un-armed, nonviolent protesters.
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Civil rights leaders meet with President Kennedy and Vice President Johnson to discuss Civil Rights, August 28, 1963.
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On August 28, 1963, thousands of activists, community leaders and citizens convened on the nation's capital to hear the words of some of the most prominent civil rights leaders.
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A procession of African Americans carrying signs for equal rights, integrated schools, decent housing, and an end to bias, August 28, 1963.
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Myrlie Evers at the funeral of her husband, NAACP activist Medgar Evers, Jackson, Mississippi, June 15, 1963.
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Photograph of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church after bombing. Birmingham, Ala., September 17, 1963.
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As the spokeswoman for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, Fannie Lou Hamer traveled to Atlantic City, NJ, for the Democratic National Convention, August 24, 1964.
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Malcolm X speaking at a NYC rally related to the citywide boycott of schools, February or March 1964.
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In the midst of the movement to desegregate Birmingham, Alabama, Malcolm X holds a workshop on Harlem to discuss the carnage of the South's desegregation, May 1963.
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Then a minister for the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X Shabazz plays with two of his daughters, 1962.
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In Selma, Alabama, black residents wait to register to vote before registration for the next election is ended, January 25, 1965.
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Selma police arresting nonviolent marchers during their first attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery, March 7, 1965.
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President Lyndon B. Johnson celebrates the signing of the Civil Rights Act, July 2, 1965, with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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Members of the Black Panther Party demonstrating outside a New York City courthouse, April 11, 1969.
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Artist-activists Sonia Sanchez and Amiri Baraka pose with former Black Panther Party leader Bobby Seale at the "Celebration of Black Writing," Philadelphia Free Library circa 1996.
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Poet Sonia Sanchez was both a literary and political leader during the era of the Black Arts Movement. Reading at Virtago Books, Maryland, November 11, 2006.
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A young demonstrator carries a placard that reads "No Vietnamese Ever Called Me Nigger" at the Harlem Peace March to End Racial Oppression on April, 27, 1967.
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A young man carries a placard that states "No Black Man Ever Called Me Chink" during the Harlem Peace March to End Racial Oppression on April, 27, 1967.
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A wounded soldier getting carried to safety by an African American GI, 1968.
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Memphis sanitation workers protesting the inequities in their contracts march through the city as the National Guard stand with bayonets raised against the protestors, March 29, 1968.
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Mourners wait to pay respects to Rev. King. Over 50,000 citizens participated in the funeral procession for the fallen civil rights leader.
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Student activists who were part of CORE, urge Harlem residents to boycott the segregated Woolworth counter, February 1, 1960.
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NAACP Freedom Singers perform at Brooklyn College, 1962. Song became an important component to non-violent protest throughout the Civil Rights Movement.
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School children demonstrating during a boycott of New York City schools, calling for quality integrated education, February 1964.
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Photograph of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church after bombing. Birmingham, Ala., September 17, 1963.
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A young woman attends the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in Washington, D.C., August, 28, 1963.
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Muhammad Ali, pictured here with Malcolm X, remained outspoken against racial oppression and the Vietnam war. 1 March 1964.
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Protestors being dragged by police during the Selma to Montgomery march to protest voter disenfranchisement in Alabama, March 9, 1965.
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After winning the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize for his civil rights activism, Dr. King returns to the United States to be greeted by droves of admirers. Baltimore, 1964.
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A woman solemnly walks in the funeral procession of Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta, April 9, 1968.
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The National Martin Luther King Memorial March for Union Justice and to End Racism, April 27, 1968.
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Lorraine Hansberry, most famously known for her play A Raisin in the Sun, a portrait of the effect of economic inequality in the United States on the black family.
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Stokely Carmichael, the SNCC leader later known as Kwame Toure, marches in solidarity during the Harlem Peace March. April 27, 1967.
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The Women's Harlem Contingent participates in the Citywide Peace March to end the war in Vietnam, Harlem, April 27,1967.
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U. S. Representative Shirley Chisholm speaks at the 1972 Democratic National Convention.
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During the impeachment hearings of President Richard Nixon, Barbara Jordan made a famous televised speech on the meaning of the Constitution and "We the People."
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