Margaret Bourke-White—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Mayor Kenneth Cass converses with a Greenville resident. | "One of many Southerners who have aided the Negro in recent years," LIFE wrote in the "Voices" article, in terms that might strike modern ears as grossly paternalistic, "and through whose efforts the Negro's lot has improved, [Cass] has worked hard to provide those of his city with equal, but not integrated, facilities of all kinds. He would feel genuinely hurt if the Negroes of Greenville were to accuse him of having failed to help them."
Margaret Bourke-White—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
The white sharecropper's wife, LIFE wrote, "also approves of segregation and will not let her 9-year-old daughter play with an 8-year-old Negro neighbor. This is the reason she gives: 'If our landlord came down here and saw her playing with a colored boy, he wouldn't respect us. Only poor class whites do that. We're trying to keep our self-respect and keep the highest level socially we can. We're willing to work with the Negroes, but that's as far as we'll go."
Margaret Bourke-White—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Two black men arrested for disorderly conduct in Greenville, 1956. | "Many of the Negroes' involvements with the law," LIFE wrote, "follow an unattractive pattern which is often cited by white Southerners as an argument for segregation. It begins on Saturday night in a noisy juke-joint, where drinking leads to quarreling and quarreling to a fist or razor fight."
Caption from LIFE. “LaRoi Drew Ali refuses to join any group, but like the nationalists attacks Christianity as a device to keep Negroes down. ‘Even if somebody did rise up on Easter,’ he says, ‘it would just be another white man to kick us.’”
Caption from LIFE. "LaRoi Drew Ali refuses to join any group, but like the nationalists attacks Christianity as a device to keep Negroes down. 'Even if somebody did rise up on Easter,' he says, 'it would just be another white man to kick us.'"
Caption from LIFE. “Stand-Up Sit-In is conducted by Negro students behind chain and ‘Reserved’ sign setting off white lunch counter at Kresge’s at Petersburg, Va. Store used chain to keep the Negroes from sitting down.”
Caption from LIFE. "Stand-Up Sit-In is conducted by Negro students behind chain and 'Reserved' sign setting off white lunch counter at Kresge's at Petersburg, Va. Store used chain to keep the Negroes from sitting down."
Not originally published in LIFE. Greenville, S. Carolina, mayor Kenneth Cass reviews a map of proposed roads in an upper-income housing development, 1956. “The development was privately built by Negroes,” LIFE noted in the caption to a similar Bourke-White photograph that ran in the magazine, “but city officials cooperated fully with their plans.”
Not originally published in LIFE. Greenville, S. Carolina, mayor Kenneth Cass reviews a map of proposed roads in an upper-income housing development, 1956. "The development was privately built by Negroes," LIFE noted in the caption to a similar Bourke-White photograph that ran in the magazine, "but city officials cooperated fully with their plans."
Leroy “Satchel” Paige was a Negro League star who, in 1948 at the age of 41, became the oldest rookie in major league history. “If he had come up into the majors when he was younger, he probably would have broken all the pitching records. You’ve heard the stories about him telling the infielders and outfielders to go sit down in the dugout, ’cause he’s going to strike out the next three batters? And then goes ahead and it? I didn’t see that, but I heard it from so many guys who played with him that I gotta believe that it’s true.”
Leroy "Satchel" Paige was a Negro League star who, in 1948 at the age of 41, became the oldest rookie in major league history. "If he had come up into the majors when he was younger, he probably would have broken all the pitching records. You've heard the stories about him telling the infielders and outfielders to go sit down in the dugout, 'cause he's going to strike out the next three batters? And then goes ahead and it? I didn’t see that, but I heard it from so many guys who played with him that I gotta believe that it's true."
Alex Brandon / AP
In Philadelphia Obama called for blacks and whites to move beyond the "racial stalemate"
Caption from LIFE. “‘Pan Man’ at Gary Works is Mrs. Rosalie Ivy, a husky Negro laborer. She is mixing a special mud used to seal the casting hole through which molten iron flows from a blast furnace.”
Caption from LIFE. "'Pan Man' at Gary Works is Mrs. Rosalie Ivy, a husky Negro laborer. She is mixing a special mud used to seal the casting hole through which molten iron flows from a blast furnace."
AP
In this photograph of a sample 2010 US Census form, obtained by The Associated Press shows question 9: "What is Person 1's race", on the first page of the 2010 Census form, with options for White: Black, African Am., or Negro.
David Goldman / AP
Gov. Mitt Romney speaks at a campaign event at the Verizon Wireless Arena, telling top donors that President Barack Obama won re-election because of the "gifts" he had already provided to blacks, Hispanics and young voters in Manchester, NH on Nov. 5, 2012.
Lee Balterman—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Caption from LIFE. "Determined to protect their own property at any cost, both Negro and white store owners brought out weapons and stood ready to use them."
Margaret Bourke-White—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
LIFE reported that Greenville, South Carolina's mayor Kenneth Cass (above, in tie) "does not subscribe to the notion that Negroes are inherently inferior. 'I wouldn't want to argue it with anybody, but I don't go along with that. It doesn't sound quite Christian to me. They're human beings just like everybody else.'"
Jeff J. Mitchell / Getty Images
Facing down a challenge New Zealand's All Blacks line up against Scotland in Edinburgh on Nov. 13, 2010. A World Cup win would buoy the rugby-crazy country after February's earthquake
Caption from LIFE. “Children in Watts grow up with the signs of fear, desperation and hatred all around. The words painted last August on this little grocery store, telling rioters that it is owned by a Negro and urging them to burn something else, were left on the walls for months afterwards — just in case.”
Caption from LIFE. "Children in Watts grow up with the signs of fear, desperation and hatred all around. The words painted last August on this little grocery store, telling rioters that it is owned by a Negro and urging them to burn something else, were left on the walls for months afterwards -- just in case."
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...
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...
