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This image of a Sambo doll from 1945 is one example of the breadth of representation and popularity that the Sambo character achieved in the 19th and early 20th centuries.Writers and illustrators created thousands of variations of the characters…

The first scenes of the Sambo story introduce Little Black Sambo’s family to the readers. Violet La Mont’s 1959 edition of Little Black Sambo depicts Sambo and his family as more phenotypically Indian compared to the representations in…

In 1963, Rev. James Bevel, along with several other key organizers, orchestrated a movement in Birmingham, AL known as the “Birmingham Children’s Crusade,”unique inthatitfeatured children astheprimary participants. As the policing…

In 1963, the youth were the driving force behind the movements in Birmingham, AL. While most envision Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ralph Abernathy when thinking of Birmingham, it was the children, as old as 17 years old and as young as six,…

The Birmingham Children’s Crusade of 1963was innovative,original, and efficient.The use of children not only multiplied the number of active participants tenfold but it also provided organizers with amuch-neededbypass around employment and…

I Passed for White is a low-budget Hollywood film based on the 1955 novel, I Passed For White, by Reba Lee “as told by” Mary Hastings Bradley. The 1960 film follows the fair-skinned Bernice Lee, played by Sonya Wilde. Unhappy with how…

Black Like Me is a documentary-style film based on the 1961 nonfiction book, Black Like Me, by journalist John Howard Griffin. The film was released in 1964 and centers on a white journalist, John Finley Horton. Horton, whose story is based on the…

During the 1964 Freedom Summer campaign RichardBeymercaptured a photo of a Freedom School sign in the Mississippi Delta. Beymerwas one of many professional photographers hired by the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), which wasmade up of…

The photographStudent Powerevokes a sense of collective identity that is not only a representation of the people participating but alsoof the collective experienceof student activism during the Civil Rights Movement. This photo shows a student…