Photo Essays
Behind the Picture: Medgar Evers’ Funeral, June 15, 1963
In 1994, eight black and four white jurors found 74-year-old white supremacist and long-time Klan member Byron De La Beckwith guilty of first-degree murder in...
LIFE and Civil Rights: Segregation in 1956 South Carolina
In late 1956, over the course of several months, LIFE published what the magazine itself described as “a series of major articles on the background of the crisis...
LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960
Very few non-violent civil disobedience tactics of the late 1950s and early 1960s were as brilliantly simple in conception and as effective in execution as the...
Love Supreme: An Interracial Romance Triumphs in 1960s Virginia
On March 18, 1966, LIFE magazine published a feature under the quietly chilling headline, “The Crime of Being Married.” The article, illustrated with photographs...
Vintage Vegas: Scenes From a Desert Boomtown
Of all the major destination towns in the U.S., Las Vegas might be the most perfectly, unashamedly transparent. No other city in North America, after all — and...
LIFE With the Boy Scouts: Photos From a Time of Change, 1971
The Boy Scouts of America is one of those enduring institutions woven so deeply into the fabric of so many lives that it sometimes feels like it’s been around as...
The Fire Last Time: LIFE in Watts, 1966
The August 1965 Watts Riots (or Watts Rebellion, depending on one’s perspective and politics), were among the bloodiest, costliest and — in the five decades...
Bigotry in the USA: Photos of the Klan in 1946
According to a recent report (March 5, 2013) by the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of extremist and anti-government “Patriot” groups...
Detroit Is Burning: Photos From the 1967 Riots
Forty-five years ago, during the long, hot summer of 1967, the city of Detroit erupted in one of the deadliest and costliest riots in the history of the United...
Brave Hearts: Remembering the Little Rock Nine, 1957
Beyond religion, beyond class, beyond politics and ideology, for centuries race been the single most contentious, corrosive question in America’s dialog with...
Rare Photos From the Set of ‘Porgy and Bess’
Not too many musical classics have experienced the sort of polar-opposite reactions from audiences and critics that Porgy and Bess has elicited ever since it...
