Unreleased Photos of Malcolm X Martin Luther King Jr Lena Horne for Black History Month

1 of 9

Participants gathered for the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in Washington, D.C. in 1957 to demand more action on civil rights as the Supreme Court banned segregation in schools.

2 of 9

A portrait of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. taken in 1963 & the stamp-posted back of the original photograph.

3 of 9

Malcolm X was sleeping at his Queens, NY home when firebombs crashed through his living room windows at 3 a.m. in 1965.

4 of 9

Run-DMC performing at Madison Square Garden in 1986. Their lyrics to "Raising Hell" were structured as a diatribe that delineated the injustices of young black people.

5 of 9

17-year old athlete Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (formerly Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr.) with his teammates at the championship basketball game for Catholic high schools.

6 of 9

Schoolchildren in 1964.

7 of 9

Lena Horne at her Upper West Side, Manhattan penthouse. Prior to moving in, Horne was consistently denied rent by racist landlords and brokers. Outraged, her friend Harry Belafonte purchased the whole building and invited friends to move in.

8 of 9

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during his round table discussion at WNBC-TV in 1963.

9 of 9

Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. of Harlem (left) was prevented from taking his seat by a House vote in 1967 for being a Negro supporter.

5,096 Hypes

Since launching in 1926 under the suggestion of historian Carter Godwin Woodson, Black History Month has been a pivotal period of commemoration for Americans and Canadians alike. With over 45 million African-Americans in the U.S. today (making about 15% of the country’s population) and an ever-growing public consciousness for systematic racial divide, more North Americans are readily exploring the nation’s rich yet turbulent history of American black culture. The importance of celebrating Black History Month and the community’s positive achievements and contributions to history as a whole are especially paramount, given the current landscape of race relations in the U.S. where stories of Spike Lee’s boycott of a White-dominated Oscars to shootings toward unarmed black people like Trayvon Martin‘s case continue to dominate headlines.

With BHM just around the corner, The New York Times team went digging through the publication’s vast collection of photographs to share unreleased negatives taken during important moments in African-American history. Never-before-seen photos of police-demonstrator confrontations, rallies protesting the assassination of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, poet and social critic James Baldwin, Run-D.M.C., writer and novelist Zora Neale Hurston, and singer, actress and activist Lena Horne are presented with iconic photos of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. years before he famously marched through Lincoln Memorial as well as Malcolm X‘s fire-destroyed living room from when he famously dodged a firebomb attack at his humble home in East Elmhurst, Queens, New York in 1965 just one week before his assassination.

Check out a selection of photographs in the gallery above and view more photos here. Stay tuned for more pictures to be released throughout the month of February – every day during Black History Month, The NY Times will be releasing at least one photograph online with accompanying stories for us to learn, engage and stay connected with the movement.

Read Full Article