photographs



Arkansas National Guardsman and 1,000 airborne troops of the Regular Army were used to move crowds of white protesters from Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. These men were moved away from the school to allow for peaceful integration.

Thurgood Marshall is shown here flanked by two men, smiling and holding hands. He would work on many civil rights cases for the NAACP, but he would have his greatest victory in Brown v. Board of Education which ended school segregation in America. He would eventually become a Supreme Court Justice as well, serving from 1967 until 1991

Richard and Pat Nixon being greeted by supporters during the 1952 presidential campaign.

This photograph of segregated drinking fountains in Georgia labeled "white" and "colored" provides an appropriate metaphor for the separate but unequal argument showing the small fountain given to blacks beside the large one for whites.



Students from Central High in Little Rock surround a sign that reads "This School is Closed by Order of the Federal Government." However, it was Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus who ordered the city's four high schools shut down, arguing that his move was necessary to prevent an outbreak of violence.

Here are demonstrators bound for Washington with signs pleading for clemency for Ethel and Julius Rosenberg who were eventually convicted and executed for espionage.

Rosa Parks is shown here walking with her attorney, Charles D. Langford, and a deputy on her way to jail in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1955 she refused to give up her seat to a white man and was arrested and found guilty of disorderly conduct. The Montgomery bus boycott began as a result of her conviction.

Here are the mugshots of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of espionage and executed. They were the first American civilians to suffer the death penalty in an espionage trial.

Workers in a California lettuce patch hard at work.

A jeep carrying the banner "strength for the free world," is shown being loaded at Baltimore on board the SS Steel Apprentice bound for Southeast Asia, as part of the Marshall Plan.

aisy Bates, president of the Arkansas NAACP, coordinated efforts to integrate Little Rock's public schools after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawed segregated public schools in 1954

Here is Count Basie, the great jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer, posing at the piano.

Here is the committee waiting to hear arguments at hearings where Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin accused members of the Unites States Army of communist associations.



A smiling couple stands outside their 1950's Mercury automobile with two happy passengers inside the vehicle



President Eisenhower signs the Alaska Statehood Bill which paves the way for the territory's later admission into the union. July 7, 1958

Marilyn Monroe entertains American troops on stage at the USO

This is a portrait of Louis Armstrong playing his trumpet. He was also known as "Satchmo" and "Pops."

As president of the Arkansas NAACP Daisy Bates coordinated the efforts to integrate Little Rock's public schools after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawed segregated public schools in 1954. She is shown here second from the right in the top row with the nine African-American students who were admitted to Little Rock's Central High School for the 1957-1958 school year. In 1962, Bates published her memoir of the Little Rock crisis, The Long Shadow of Little Rock.

Members of the Klan march, wearing hoods and masks.1950

This is Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union and an ally of the United States during World War II. He would later become our enemy as his "Iron Curtain" descended upon Eastern Europe.

Jackie Robinson is shown in his Brooklyn Dodgers uniform ready to swing the bat. He broke baseball's color barrier by becoming the first African American player in Major League Baseball.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower addresses the nation concerning the integration of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and used them to protect the nine African-American students who were attempting to go to a previously all white school amidst an angry mob. Governor Orval Faubus had used the state militia to prevent them from attending the school Hula hoops were a popular craze during the 1950s. Six women and girls give the fad a try in this photograph



The Cold War got hotter with the outbreak of the Korean Waran effort on the part of America and the U.N. to halt the spread of Communism in Asia. Here is General Douglas MacArthur, who oversaw our forces in Korea. He would later be fired for insubordination by President Truman. MacArthur is sitting in a jeep with Lieutenant. General Ridgeway

A man, woman, and child are seated in the "Kidde Kokoon," an underground bomb shelter manufactured by Walter Kidde Nuclear Laboratories of Garden City, Long Island.

Families are shown moving into homes in Levittown, New York.

Elvis Presley not only "shake, rattle, and rolled" across the country, he also appeared in popular movies, such as the one he is shown in here, "Jailhouse Rock."



President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (from left) greet South Vietnam's President Ngo Dinh Diem at the Washington National Airport.

An automobile with a sign that reads, "Education without Mixing," drives down a street with enthusiastic supporters of segregation.

Dr. Jonas Salk inoculates a boy with the polio vaccine as two nurses assist him.

Signs once used to separate the races at public facilities are shown in a pile headed for the trash.



This is a publicity portrait of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz for the "Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show" television series.



White students protest integration at Central High School in Little Rock Arkansas. The students yell from a car with a banner which reads, "Welcome home, Daddy Faubus"

A migrant worker carries a large stack of boxes across the field to be filled with lettuce.

Here is a bus in Mexico transporting migrant workers to the United States.

A Black man is surrounded by white men threatening him with violence during the Montgomery bus boycotts.

A man helps a little girl into an underground bomb shelter manufactured by Walter Kidde Nuclear Laboratories of Garden City, Long Island.1955

American tanks and jeeps filled with soldiers make their way down a dusty road in Korea during the Korean Conflict. []

An American soldier loads a man onto a wagon during the Korean Conflict.1950 []

An American lettuce farmer shows a migrant worker some techniques to remember when picking lettuce.1958 []



Here a black woman, Mrs. Nettie Hunt, sits on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court Building with her daughter Nickie holding a newspaper with the headline, "High Court Bans Segregation in Public Schools." 1954 []

A family gathers to watch early television. []

This is an aerial view of Levittown, New York, in the 1950s. [] Senator McCarthy testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, March 14, 1950 []

President Eisenhower signing the Hawaii Statehood Bill in the Oval Office, March 18, 1959 []