The Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division has multiple collections that feature photographs from the African American Civil Rights movement. Rights-free images on the subject are less prolific, because they were taken during a period when copyrights could still be in effect. This guide focuses on a selection of images that are considered to have no known copyright restrictions.

These images were selected to meet requests regularly received by the division. Not all of the key events of the era are found in the Prints & Photographs Division collections (for instance, the division does not have photographs that are demonstrably rights-free showing the signing of the 1964 federal civil rights bill and has not found images in the collection showing the signing of 1965 voting rights legislation).

The images can be viewed and downloaded from the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog. Select the link or image grid below to view the set of images and accompanying descriptions. As additional images are identified that meet the criteria, codes are added to the descriptions to enable the additional images to be retrieved in the set.