Incredible Behind the Scenes Photos of Civil Rights Activists Training to Endure the Harassment and Violence They Would Face

In 1960, college student activists gathered at Shaw University in Raleigh, NC, and organized the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to fight for civil rights.

SNCC played an important role in civil rights history and was fundamental to the organizing of sit-ins, freedom rides and other forms of direct-action protest. To prepare for the type of hatred and violence they would encounter, students practiced “passive resistance training.” While SNCC was non-violent, the type of training the students had to do included everything from verbal abuse and hair pulling, to spiting and getting aggressively physical. These training sessions, briefly depicted in a scene in The Butler, were difficult and often included white members of the group having to enact the racism the group was fighting.

These photos provide a rare glimpse into the emotional, physical, and psychological work activists did in order to prepare for their non-violent resistance. They were taken by the legendary photographers James Karales and Eve Arnold. These photos have been published with permission from their respective estates.

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28 Vintage Photographs of George H.W. Bush Before He Became the 41st President of the United States

George H.W. Bush, who died Nov. 30, 2018 at the age of 94, served the government in various roles before he was elected president in 1988.

With a rich political and personal legacy, former President George H. W. Bush left no shortage of memorable photos from his time both in and out of office. He was also no stranger to controversy and was voted out after one term, bringing an end to the Reagan Republican era.

Before his life in the limelight, the Senator's son made his mark as a Navy pilot in WWII and captain of the Yale baseball team before making his fortune drilling oil in Texas. His marriage to Barbara Pierce, daughter of the McCall's magazine publisher, was the longest of any U.S. presidential couple.

In politics, Bush served in numerous roles over more than 25 years: U.S. Congressman from Texas (1966-1970), ambassador to the United Nations (1971-1974), Special Envoy to China (1974-1975), Republican National Chairman (1975-1976), CIA director (1976-1977), Vice President of the U.S. (1981-1989), and the 41st President of the United States (1989-1993).

Since exiting the highest office, his love of life and family was never more visible. He saw his first son become the 43rd U.S. President - only the second father-son presidential duo in U.S. history - and to the delight of many photographers he went skydiving at age 85 and took to wearing colorful socks while traveling in a wheelchair.

Please scroll to view the photos below.

George Herbert Walker Bush is pictured when he was one and a half year old.

Five-year-old George H. W. Bush stands with his sister Mercy in Milton, Massachusetts, 1929.

Here Bush is as a young teenager, July 1937.

George H.W. Bush at summer camp, 1939.

The future president poses in his Phillips Academy Andover baseball uniform, 1941.

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One of the Most Famous Vehicles in History: Rare Photographs of JFK Lincoln Limousine Under Construction in 1961

No other vehicle is as seared into the memory of a nation as the Lincoln limousine President John F. Kennedy rode in during his assassination on November 22, 1963, in Dallas.

In 1961, a short time into Kennedy’s presidency, the White House leased a specially-modified Lincoln Convertible built by the Ford Motor Company. The vehicle — codenamed the SS-100-X by the US Secret Service — came with added extras such as telephones, a retractable roof, flashing lights, standing platforms for security agents and — questionably, in hindsight — a hydraulic lift that raised the president’s seat so that he could be more easily seen.

It was by far the most expensive and sophisticated car built for a president but, impressive as it was, the SS-100-X did not have the armor plating and bulletproof glass that would soon become standard for presidential limousines.

The Kennedy limousine is one of the most famous vehicles in history, with countless documentaries, films and books devoted to what happened to its most famous passenger in 1963. Photos and vision of the limousine on that day have been examined, dissected, discussed and disputed for decades, but many people do not know what happened to the vehicle in the years that followed.

“A lot of people assume it was destroyed, or locked away in some warehouse never to be seen again,” said Matt Anderson, transport curator at the Henry Ford Museum.

After the assassination, and still covered in blood, the SS-100-X was flown from Dallas back to Washington DC, where it was stored in the White House garage and searched for evidence by the FBI.

Lyndon B Johnson was sworn in as president and one of the biggest criminal investigations in history began.

It would have been well down his list of priorities given the recent events, but the new president found himself without an official limousine — certainly without one that met appropriate security standards given the events in Dallas.

“It was a simple matter of expediency — the president needed a parade car, and it was much faster to rebuild the existing car than to build something from scratch,” explained Anderson.

So, the decision was made to refit the SS-100-X. This was considered the quickest and most cost-effective solution, earning it the nickname The Quick Fix.

The vehicle was sent to the Hess & Eisenhardt company, which specialized in making armored vehicles, and was stripped back to its bare bones before being modified. Titanium plating was added to the body, along with a bulletproof roof and windows, and flat-proof tyres. It was also fitted with an air-filtration system to protect against chemical attack.

However, Lyndon B. Johnson must have had at least some qualms about the vehicle because he had it painted black, not wanting anyone to recognize his presidential limo as being “that” presidential limo.

“Johnson took one look and ordered that the car be repainted in black,” Anderson said. “He thought the blue was too associated with President Kennedy and the assassination.”

After a repaint, the limousine was returned to the White House in May, 1964, six months after JFK’s assassination. President Johnson was said to have been extremely uncomfortable about riding in the infamous limousine, for obvious reasons, but used it as his official car until 1968.

The SS-100-X clocked up tens of thousands of kilometers on the road in the service of the White House, and even more air miles on many overseas trips.

But, even when Johnson commissioned a new limousine, which came into service in 1968, that was not the end of road for the iconic car. The vehicle stayed in service at the White House until the late 1970s and — although no longer the main presidential limousine — was occasionally used by presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.

“People are surprised to learn that it was rebuilt and used for another 14 years following the Kennedy assassination,” Anderson said.

After the White House stopped leasing the SS-100-X in 1978, it was returned to the Ford Motor Company and now sits in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

A worker from the Hess & Eisenhardt Company works on the extension of the limousine. Far from the stretch models used today, this Lincoln Continetal measured just 21 feet.

Customization of the John F. Kennedy presidential limousine was performed by the Hess & Eisenhardt Company of Cincinnati, Ohio. The car was stretched by 3.5 feet, steps were added for Secret Service agents, and a siren and lights were added to the limo.

Transformation of the limo took about six months. It was delivered to the White House in June 1961, six months into Kennedy’s term.

Another part of the JFK limo’s customization effort included a hydraulic rear seat that raised the president up nearly a foot for better visibility.

Ford Motor Company collaborated on the car’s customization and retained ownership of the car after the transformation was complete. The automaker leased the car back to the Secret Service for just $500 per year.

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A Rare Glimpse Inside the Lives of Jim Jones’ 909 Followers in Jonestown, Just Before the Deadliest Cult in American History

40 years ago today, more than 900 people died in the jungles of Guyana. Most were poisoned. Some drank the cyanide-laced liquid willingly. Others, including children, were forced to take it. They were following the orders of the charismatic leader of a group called the Peoples Temple, a man from the San Francisco area named Jim Jones. The year before, Jones had fled with his flock to South America when questions were raised about abuses at the congregation.

In 2010, the Jonestown Institute, made up of former residents and members of the Peoples Temple, filed a request to the FBI to release the thousands of documents and photographs collected from Jonestown. Images from the early years showed hand built houses and boys sinking perfect three pointers in the tropical sunshine. But as always, Jonestown was more than it appeared. Most of the images were staged as part of a propaganda campaign by the Temple’s leader, Jim Jones, to deflect the mainland US’s growing concern. The reality was the residents were severely malnourished, sleep deprived and worked to the bone seven days a week in the scorching tropical sun. Jones collected the savings and welfare checks of all of the members, and spread terrifying rumors and fake news about the US descending back into a state of racial segregation, revoking the rights of African American citizens. The Peoples Temple was originally founded on the premise of racial equality, and three quarters of its victims were African American. Jonestown was carved out of the jungle as a socialist utopia where “all races, creeds, and colors find a hearty welcome.”

Ultimately, as Jones descended into psychosis, kool-aid laced with cyanide was an escape from a life of terror and psychological torture. Despite the sensationalist media headlines we are all familiar with, it wasn’t a blind leap of faith. The hope of many of the victims, recorded in secret suicide notes, was that their deaths would bring attention to the fact that ultimately, they had all felt more welcomed by Jonestown and its promise of racial equality than by the United States.

Over the decades, the intentions of that act has been obscured by the punch-line, but staged or not, these photos show real people, friends and families who all just wanted a chance to live in a better world.

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Young Girl Being Trained to Not React to Smoke Blown in Her Face and Having Her Hair Pulled, 1960

In 1960 Magnum photographer Eve Arnold attended a training school for black sit-ins in Petersburg, Virginia. She documented a series of photos of a young girl being trained not to hit back when harassed by whites.

It’s pretty amazing most people don’t realize how much work goes into protests and social movements. When you are dealing with extremely dangerous social disobedience training is necessary to avoid chaos. You can’t just get a large group of people together and have a successful action. People panic. They might strike out reflexively when threatened. People get hurt or even killed. This training has now become commonplace for protestors.

Eve Arnold (1912–2012) was already one of the foremost photographers of her time. Equally at ease photographing potato pickers in Long Island and the Queen of England, Arnold selected subjects ranging from a nomad bride in the Hindu Kush to Zulu women in a South African hospital, harems in Abu Dhabi, barmaids in Cuba, a fencing mistress in a British school, African American women marching for civil rights in Virginia, and her famous portraits of Marilyn Monroe.

(Photos © Eve Arnold/Magnum Photos)

20 Disturbing Pictures That Show What Life in the U.S Looked Like Under Jim Crow Laws

Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. Enacted by white Democrat-dominated state legislatures after the Reconstruction period, in the late 19th century, the laws were enforced until 1965.

In practice, Jim Crow laws mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in the states of the former Confederate States of America, starting in the 1870s and 1880s, and were upheld in 1896, by the U.S. Supreme Court's "separate but equal" legal doctrine for African Americans, established with the court's decision in the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson. Moreover, public education had essentially been segregated since its establishment in most of the South, after the Civil War (1861–65).

The legal principle of "separate, but equal" racial segregation was extended to public facilities and transportation, including the coaches of interstate trains and buses. Facilities for African Americans were consistently inferior and underfunded, compared to the facilities for white Americans; sometimes there were no black facilities. As a body of law, Jim Crow institutionalized economic, educational, and social disadvantages for African Americans. Legalized racial segregation principally existed in the Southern states, while Northern racial segregation generally was a matter of fact — enforced in housing with private covenants in leases, bank lending-practices, and employment-preference discrimination, including labor-union practices.

Here in pictures are many of the common sights during what became known as the Jim Crow era.

In this undated picture, men drink from segregated water fountains.

A teacher instructs a segregated class of black students at a poorly funded, one-room school in the backwoods of Georgia in 1941.

White tenants seeking to prevent black Americans from moving into the Sojourner Truth Homes, a federal governmental housing project, erected this sign in Detroit in 1942.

Dr. and Mrs. Charles N. Atkins of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and their sons, Edmond, 10, and Charles, 3, pause for a glance at the Santa Fe Depot segregation sign on Nov. 25, 1955.

US and Confederate flags fly from a car parked on Tennessee's Capitol Hill in Nashville, where Gov. Frank Clement met with a delegation of pro-segregationists on Jan. 24, 1956. Clement turned down a bid to lead a fight for continued racial segregation, saying he did not plan to interfere with local authorities and their decisions on such matters.

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10 Interesting Photographs of VE Day Celebrations in London

On 7 May 1945 the formal act of military surrender was signed by Germany, ending the war in Europe. The next day celebrations broke out all over the world to mark Victory in Europe or VE Day. In Britain, Churchill marked the occasion by declaring 8 May a public holiday. People held parties, danced and sang in the streets. Huge crowds gathered in London, both on Whitehall to hear Churchill speak and outside Buckingham Palace where King George VI and the Royal Family appeared on the balcony.

For many though, the celebrations were bitter-sweet. People mourned their lost friends and loved ones, while others were still engaged in combat, as the war in the Far East continued.

Here are 10 photos of some the celebrations that took place that day in London.

1. Truck Ride on the Strand

Revelers ride a truck along the Strand in London.

2. Dancing in the Streets

Soldiers and civilians dance on a street near Berkeley Square in London.

3. Party in Piccadilly Circus

A mass of civilians and servicemen crowd around Piccadilly Circus in London.

4. Children on VE Day

Two small girls wave their flags in the rubble of Battersea.

5. In the Fountains at Trafalgar Square

Two British sailors and their girlfriends wading in the fountains in Trafalgar Square on VE Day.

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Pancho Villa Expedition: Rare and Amazing Photographs From the 1916 Mexican Border Campaign

At 2:30 on 9 March 1916, several hundred troops under the command of Francisco "Pancho" Villa crossed the border separating the United States and Mexico and attacked the small Army garrison at Columbus, New Mexico. The raid was a surprise to the still sleeping men of the 13th Cavalry, who were responsible for patrolling the border around town.

After about two hours of fighting, and a brief pursuit of Villa's men into Mexico by Major Frank Tompkins, the attacking bands dispersed into the deserts of Chihuahua. Due to the work of a telegraph agent in town, the public heard about the raid almost as it was happening, and within twenty four hours, President Woodrow Wilson decided to send the U.S. Army into Mexico. Known as the Punitive Expedition and led by Brigadier General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing, the goal of the campaign was to capture Pancho Villa and those men responsible for the raid.

The Columbus raid was a minor skirmish in a much bigger conflict. The Mexican Revolution began in 1910 as a revolt to remove Porfirio Díaz, the aging dictator of Mexico, from power, but as revolutionary factions fractured, the war became a large scale political and social revolution that transformed the republic. Villa was the head of one of the most powerful of these factions, but his fortunes declined after breaking from the Constitutionalists, led by General Venustiano Carranza. When Wilson recognized Carranza as the legal president of Mexico in October 1915, Villa became enraged. This resentment boiled over into a series of attacks on U.S. citizens in Mexico by Villa's forces, culminating in the attack on Columbus.

The Punitive Expedition was comprised of 4,800 men from the 7th, 10th, and 13th Cavalry, 6th Field Artillery, the 6th and 16th Regiments of Infantry, the 1st Aero Squadron, and medical personnel. The 10th Cavalry was an African American regimen. Known as buffalo soldiers, these troops were mostly led by white officers, with the exception of Major Charles Young, who was one of only three African American officers in the U.S. Army. The expedition entered Mexico on 15 March 1916 in two columns, one led by Pershing that crossed the border at Culberson's Ranch and a second that crossed near Columbus.

Pershing's column arrived first at Colonía Dublán and then split into three provisional squadrons, all of which went south on different paths to pursue Villa and his forces. One of these provisional squadrons composed of soldiers of the 7th Cavalry and led by Col. George A. Dodd rode to the town of Guerrero on the hunt for Villa. Left without reliable guides, the 7th Cavalry spent the night of 28 to 29 March traveling a circuitous route to the town, arriving at about 0800. Villa had been shot in the leg during a skirmish in Guerrero on 27 March and was taken to a home in the area, where he stayed before leaving in the direction of Minaca at daybreak on 29 March. Dodd skirmished with retreating Villistas, but did not see Pancho Villa himself. The expedition was never closer to capturing Villa.

While the three provisional squadrons pursued Villistas, the column that entered Mexico from Columbus was divided into four "flying columns," so named because they were small, highly mobile, and expected to provide for themselves materially in the field. As these squads combed Chihuahua, Pershing moved his main base of operations further south to San Geronimo and then to Satevó to be closer to the cavalry. These columns were assisted by the 1st Aero Squadron, which was mostly tasked with delivering messages and doing reconnaissance. This was the first major Army operation in which planes were used in the field, and the expedition revealed serious deficiencies in the eight Curtiss JN-3 biplanes that the squadron brought to Mexico. Besides their inadequate number, the planes had difficulties flying in Chihuahua's high elevations, heat, wind, and sand. By April, all of the planes had been grounded.

On 12 April, one of these flying columns under the command of Maj. Tompkins, supported on each flank by squadrons riding further north, decided to go to the town of Parral after contracting for supplies and fodder. Upon their arrival, General Ismael Lozano, who was in charge of local Mexican government forces, requested that Tompkins depart, while a mob of civilians formed. Tompkins refused, and asked Lozano to provide him with a spot to camp. On the way to this camp, his squad skirmished with government forces, called Carrancistas, and with civilian members of the mob. This clash precipitated a diplomatic crisis that led Wilson to order Pershing to move his headquarters back north to Colonía Dublán and give up the active pursuit of Villa. Flying columns were replaced by squads that patrolled a grid around Dublán.

Still, small skirmishes between Pershing's forces, Villistas, and Carrancistas continued even after the end of active pursuit. After another raid north of the border on the tiny settlement of Glen Springs, Wilson ordered the National Guard to mobilize to protect the border. Units from Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico came first, but when their numbers proved small, Wilson ordered the National Guard to send troops from the rest of the nation. Eventually, over 100,000 National Guard spent the next several months training along the border. In Mexico, a patrol squad led by Captain William T. Boyd was ordered to do reconnaissance in the area of Ahumada. On the way there, Boyd insisted on passing through the town of Carrizal even after being denied permission by Carrancistas. This led to a skirmish in which nine troops were killed and twelve were wounded. In addition, twenty three soldiers were taken prisoner.

The fallout from this action led to the establishment of a joint Mexican-U.S. commission to negotiate Pershing's withdrawal and orders for the expedition to stay in the vicinity of Colonía Dublán. The soldiers of the Punitive Expedition ceased patrolling, but they kept busy until their withdrawal on 5 February 1917 drilling and training. In the end, Pershing did not capture Villa, but he did receive valuable experienced that served him in his role as leader of the American Expeditionary Forces in WWI.

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The Harsh Realities of Apartheid-Era South Africa Through a Black South African's Lens

In the mid-1960s, photojournalist Ernest Cole undertook a dangerous mission—to produce a volume of photographs that would reveal to the world the excruciating realities of life under apartheid. The result was the groundbreaking book House of Bondage, published in 1967.

“When I say that people can be fired or arrested or abused or whipped or banished for trifles, I am not describing the exceptional case for the sake of being inflammatory. What I say is true – and most white South Africans would acknowledge it freely. They do not pretend these things are not happening. The essential cruelty of the situation is not that all blacks are virtuous and all whites villainous, but that the whites are conditioned not to see anything wrong in the injustices they impose on their black neighbors.” – Ernest Cole, House of Bondage, 1967.

Ernest Cole was born in South Africa’s Transvaal in 1940. His early work chronicled the horrors of apartheid and in 1966 he fled the Republic of South Africa becoming a ‘banned person’. He was briefly associated with Magnum Photographers and received funding from the Ford Foundation and Time-Life. In North America, he concentrated on street photography in primarily urban settings.

Between 1969 and 1971, Cole spent an extensive amount of time on regular visits to Sweden where he became involved with the Tiofoto collective and exhibited his work. From 1972, Cole’s life fell into disarray and he ceased to work as a photographer, losing control of his archive and negatives in the process. Having experienced periods of homelessness, Cole died aged forty-nine of pancreatic cancer in New York City in 1990.

In 2017, more than 60,000 of Cole’s negatives missing for more than forty years were discovered in a Stockholm bank vault. This work is now being examined and catalogued.

City benches were for whites only and were so inscribed. There were no “blacks only” benches in Johannesburg; blacks sat on the curbstones.

Contract-expired miners are on the right, carrying their discharge papers and wearing “European” clothes while new recruits, many in tribal blankets, are on the left.

Handcuffed blacks were arrested for being in a white area illegally.

Earnest boy squats on haunches and strains to follow lesson in heat of packed classroom.

“Penny baas, please, baas, I hungry” This plaint is part of nightly scene in the Golden City, as black boys beg from whites. They may be thrown a coin, or… they may get slapped in the face.

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20 Rarely Seen Photos of a Young Hillary Clinton From the 1960s

Hillary Clinton: little girl smiling in a white dress with a bicycle behind her. Hillary: splashing the water with her feet while attending college. Clinton: meeting President Ronald Reagan with her husband, Bill.

Portrait of young Hillary Clinton from the 1960s

Rarely seen photos of Hillary Clinton reveal the human behind the First Lady, Senator, Secretary of State and all the other titles that attached to a woman who has been at the pinnacle of American politics for 25 years.

This gallery traces Clinton's development growth from a young girl to a college student and then wife to Bill. The photos have a deeply personal nature.

Hillary, c. 1960. (Courtesy William J. Clinton Presidential Library)

Hillary as an intern with Congress, Summer 1968. (Courtesy William J. Clinton Presidential Library)

Hillary joins students and a faculty member at the Wellesley College Alumnae Council Student Panel, 1968. (Courtesy Wellesley College Archives)

Hillary (center) attends a student rally at Wellesley College, October 8, 1968. (Wellesley College Archives)

Hillary (center) attends a student rally at Wellesley College, October 8, 1968. (Courtesy Wellesley College Archives)

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