Main Content
In this collection, explore the history of the White House and the Civil Rights Movement through its leaders and activists that took part in demonstrations, protests, and meetings with presidents. The collection highlights Martin Luther King Jr.'s leadership in the civil rights movement, including his meetings with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.
Compiled by the White House Historical Association. Please credit the Association by its full name when using this information.
Please direct your inquiries to press@whha.org
Refer to our Rights and Reproductions Guidelines for image usage information.
The White House serves as a stage for ceremonial visits, performances, and international diplomacy, but it is also the backdrop for many of the country’s transformative moments. On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, the most comprehensive civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex, or national origin, while al
After the 1964 electoral landslide, President Lyndon Johnson’s political position changed considerably. With a larger liberal majority in both houses of Congress secured, Johnson believed he now had an electoral mandate to move forward on the issue of civil rights. He wasted no time in setting a marker for his goals. In his 1965 inaugural address, Johnson intimated that he would pu
From the streets of Selma to the walls of the White House, Martin Luther King, Jr. worked tirelessly for the civil rights of African-Americans, and ultimately human rights for everyone. Enjoy a flickr slideshow of photographs that document his influence on four presidential administrations.
Shortly before 5 p.m. on April 11, 1968, several congressional and African-American leaders gathered in the East Room of the White House to witness the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (commonly known as the Fair Housing Act). Before signing the measure, President Lyndon B. Johnson took the stage and delivered brief remarks to commemorate the occasion. Among his comments, he
In the center of Washington, D.C, there is a seven-acre public park enclosed by H Street NW (north), Madison Place (east), Pennsylvania Avenue (south), and Jackson Place (west). Sometimes referred to as Lafayette Park or Lafayette Square (as a neighborhood), the area was named after the famous French hero, the Marquis de Lafayette. The park features a statue of
Although Michelle Obama was the first African-American first lady of the United States, African Americans have been integrally involved in the history of the White House from its initial construction in 1792.1 Mrs. Obama’s speech during the 2016 Democratic National Convention reminded the nation of a commonly unacknowledged aspect of our shared history, embedded within the structure of the White House it
For more than a century, thousands of Americans have gathered in Lafayette Park across from the White House to exercise their First Amendment rights and bring awareness to their respective causes. In this collection, explore how individuals, groups, and organizations historically used this space to advocate equality, protest policy, and demand action from the neighborhood's most powerful occupant.
A master of the art of practical politics, Lyndon Johnson came into the White House after the tragedy of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. He was energetic, shrewd, and hugely ambitious. Clifford Alexander, Jr., deputy counsel to the president and an African American, remembered President Johnson as a larger-than-life figure who was a tough but fair taskmaster. His le
Throughout four hundred years, Washington, D.C. has undergone massive transformations. Starting as a sparsely populated plantation society that grew to be a center of the slave trade, the nation’s seat of government developed into a diverse metropolis over time, eventually becoming the nation’s first majority Black city. Historians Derek Musgrove and Chris Myers Asch will discuss their book
Ida B. Wells-Barnett was an American investigative journalist, educator, and activist in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.1 An African-American woman of “striking courage and conviction,” she received national recognition as the leader of the anti-lynching crusade.2 Wells-Barnett sought a federal anti-lynching law that would convict forms of “violence in which a mob, under the pretext of administering justice withou