During LIFE’s near 40-year history as a weekly publication, it produced one Halloween cover story. The cover, an experimental photograph taken by LIFE staffer George Silk, is a skeleton-costumed boy leaping into the air with a pumpkin.
Most of LIFE’s covers featured current events, politics or celebrities. This makes the October 31, 1960 issue unique: the Halloween photographs were an artistic spread, free from an accompanying news article. Each image grouping was composed across double pages of the magazine and was paired with short paragraphs of Halloween poetry:
“Listen! Was that a knocking? Only a trickster, you say, wrapped up in a shroud, and bent on a treat. Or masked impostors caught by a camera with a crooked lens.”
Silk’s ‘crooked lens’ was an altered strip camera. Strip photography, sometimes called slit photography, is a technique that creates a 2-dimensional image using a sequence of images over time. The final image is a collection of thin vertical or horizontal strips patched together to make one.
Silk used a strip camera to photograph running movements at the 1960 Summer Olympics, and was one of the earliest photographers to use the technique for creative use. In doing so he produced the epitome of Halloween. Children masked and cloaked, gleefully running to fill their bags with treats and goodies before the night is up.
As the original foreword in the 1960 issue advises, please enjoy this “gaudy gallery of characters who ride the night wind, clank skeleton shins and make a trick picture treat. It’s funny and it won’t scare the kids.”
A multiple exposure photograph of a child in a skeleton mask.
Time and again, LIFE photographers such as Alfred Eisenstaedt, Bill Ray, Thomas McAvoy, Ed Clark, Gjon Mili and others found ways to capture the drama, tension and, occasionally, the humor inherent in big-time politics. And with the possible exception of election night, there’s no more dramatic, tense or humorous time (sometimes intentionally, sometimes not) to watch the strange, imperfect mechanism of representative democracy at work than during a national convention.
In recent years, much of the drama around conventions has been leached out of the proceedings. The way that COVID-19 has impacted the conventions in 2020 has added an extra note of nostalgia to the images of conventions from years past.
Here, LIFE.com presents a selection of LIFE’s best pictures from the Republican national conventions across several decades. More than a few famous GOP stalwarts are here—Ike, Nixon, Goldwater, Thomas Dewey—as are other long-forgotten pols who were players in their day, and the delegates who, in the end, provide both parties’ conventions with their real energy
The 1968 Republican National Convention, Miami Beach, Florida.
Ralph Crane/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The 1968 Republican National Convention, Miami Beach, Florida.
Lynn Pelham/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A go-go girl entertained delegates during the 1968 Republican National Convention, Miami Beach, Florida.
Lynn Pelham/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Arizona politician and future U.S. Attorney General Richard Kleindienst (left) conferred with Nebraska’s Richard Herman during the 1964 GOP National Convention in San Francisco.
Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Ronald Reagan at the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco.
Ralph Crane/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago.
Michael Rougier/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
During the 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Martin Luther King Jr. led a demonstration calling for a strong Civil Rights plank in the GOP campaign platform.
Francis Miller/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago.
Michael Rougier/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago.
Michael Rougier/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The 1956 Republican National Convention, San Francisco, California.
Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Left to right: President Dwight D. Eisenhower, his wife Mamie, Richard M. Nixon and his wife, Pat, at the 1956 GOP National Convention, San Francisco, California.
Hank Walker/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The 1956 Republican National Convention, San Francisco.
Leonard McCombe/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Chairman of the Republican National Committee Arthur E. Summerfield spoke on the telephone during the 1952 GOP National Convention in Chicago.
George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Control booth, 1952 GOP National Convention in Chicago.
Cornell Capa/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Bertha Baur, a prominent figure at conventions for decades and a long-time member of the Republican National Committee, in an elephant hat at the 1952 GOP National Convention in Chicago.
Francis Miller/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Pennsylvania Governor John Fine (left) and Arthur Summerfield chatted in private during the 1952 Republican National Convention in Chicago.
Ralph Morse/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Republicans held an informal conference in a kitchen during the 1952 GOP National Convention in Chicago.
Cornell Capa/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Vice-presidential nominee Richard Nixon and his wife Pat spoke with photographers during the 1952 GOP National Convention in Chicago.
Ralph Morse/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The 1952 GOP National Convention in Chicago.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The 1948 GOP National Convention in Philadelphia.
Gjon Mili/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The 1948 GOP National Convention in Philadelphia.
Gjon Mili/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Pennsylvania delegates to the 1944 Republican National Convention in Chicago pulled cold beers from a tub of ice after a caucus meeting.
Thomas McAvoy/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Delegates listened to Herbert Hoover during the 1944 Republican National Convention in Chicago.
Gordon Coster/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A model wore a bathing suit in a fashion show at Ohio senator Robert Taft’s headquarters during the 1940 GOP National Convention in Philadelphia.
William C. Shrout/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A young Republican rested on a sofa in the Hotel Adelphi during the 1940 GOP National Convention in Philadelphia. (“Van” was Sen. Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, who was long considered a front-runner for the GOP nomination; instead, the Republicans nominated Indiana’s Wendell Willkie, who lost the election to the Democratic incumbent, Franklin Roosevelt.)
The 2020 Republican National Convention has become a virtual event due to the COVID-19 pandemic, just as the Democratic Convention had the week before. Here LIFE dips into its archives for a colorful look at what the GOP event was like when people could safely convene.
LIFE’s first major coverage of a Republican National Convention was in its issue of June 24, 1940. At that gathering in Philadelphia, the Republicans nominated Wendell Willkie for the tough and ultimately futile task of challenging the popular Franklin D. Roosevelt in the general election.
The Philadelphia Convention Hall teemed during the 1940 Republican National Convention.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon at the 1956 Republican National Convention in San Francisco, where they accepted their party’s re-nomination.
The 1956 Republican National Convention, which took place at the Cow Palace just outside San Francisco, re-nominated incumbent President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon. It was the first RNC to take place after that year’s Democratic National Convention, rather than before. After 1956, it became an informal tradition that the party holding the White House held their convention second.
Vice President Richard Nixon with his wife, Pat Nixon, at the 1956 Republican National Convention.
Many of the color photographs taken during the 1956 RNC were shot by LIFE staff photographer Leonard McCombe. His beautiful frames imparted elegance to the sometimes-gimmicky qualities of a party convention.
LIFE photographer Leonard McCombe looked for captivating images at the 1956 Republican Convention in San Francisco.
Eisenhower and Nixon went on to win the 1956 election, easily defeating Adlai Stevenson. Four years later Vice President Nixon stepped up to lead the Republican ticket, and he had no opponents for the 1960 nomination.
The LIFE cover from August 8, 1960, featured Richard and Pat Nixon at the Republican National Convention in Chicago.
The 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago nominated Richard Nixon for president and former Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts for vice president. It was the 14th time Chicago hosted the RNC, more times than any other city.
Presidential nominee Richard Nixon greeted a supporter at the 1960 Republican National Convention.
During the convention Nixon promised in his acceptance speech that he would visit every state during his campaign.
“I announce to you tonight, and I pledge to you, that I, personally, will carry this campaign into every one of the fifty states of this Nation between now and November the eighth.”
These Nixon supporters wore matching dresses for the 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago.
The 1960 presidential election was closely contested, and Nixon lost to the Democratic nominee, Senator John F. Kennedy. Some believed that Nixon’s convention promise of visiting every state—while Kennedy focussed on popular swing states—was one of the reasons that Nixon lost.
The July 24, 1964 cover of LIFE featuring Barry Goldwater with his wife Peggy at the 1964 Republican National Convention.
The 1964 Republican National Convention was held in the same location as the 1956 RNC, the Cow Palace Arena outside San Francisco. The Republican primaries pitted liberal Nelson Rockefeller of New York against Conservative Barry Goldwater of Arizona. Goldwater secured the nomination for president, and New York representative William Miller received the nomination for vice president.
Goldwater’s winning of the nomination meant a change for the party, as described by LIFE in its July 24th, 1964 issue, with Goldwater on the cover:
In a crescendo that thrust Barry Goldwater into control, the Republican changed both its course and its nature. In flashes of anger and pathos, of bitterness and exultation – captured on these pages by the color cameras of LIFE photographers – the G.O.P. was seized by its unyielding right wing.
Gold coins rained down on delegates after Goldwater won the presidential nomination at the 1964 Republican National Convention at the Cow Palace in San Francisco.
The 1964 gathering was the first in which a woman was entered for nomination at a major party convention. Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith, a moderate Republican, placed fifth in the initial balloting.
Delegates at the 1964 Republican National Convention held signs supporting the candidacy of Senator Margaret Chase Smith for president; she placed fifth on the first ballot.
Goldwater was an outspoken conservative and an opponent of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Goldwater’s candidacy fueled several days of protests outside the 1964 RNC.
Marchers dressed as KKK members to condemn Barry Goldwater outside the 1964 Republican National Convention.
Goldwater lost the general election to incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson in a landslide, but his nomination contributed to the Republican party’s modern conservative movement.
Presidential nominee Richard Nixon (right) and Vice Presidential nominee Spiro Agnew shared the podium during the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach.
The 1968 Republican National Convention took place in the Miami Beach convention center in Florida. As they had eight years before, Republicans nominated former Vice President Richard Nixon for president, and Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew was chosen for vice president.
An enthusiastic crowd greeted Richard Nixon standing at the 1968 Republican National Convention, Miami Beach, Florida.
The release of balloons celebrated the nomination of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, who took in the scene from the podium at the 1968 Republican Convention.
Though Nixon was the frontrunner during the convention, California Governor Ronald Reagan and New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller also received several hundred votes. LIFE’s coverage of the Miami Beach RNC was the most colorful yet. An article written by Paul O’Neil in the August 16, 1968 issue of LIFE details go-go music, ‘gaudy’ headgear, costumes, and even a Rockefeller showboat that moved up and down a river by the convention’s hotels.
A Rockefeller supporter on a showboat waved to a Nixon boat during the 1968 Republican National Convention, Miami Beach, Florida.
Nixon defeated Democratic nominee, Herbert Humphrey, in the the 1968 presidential election. The election year was chaotic, marked by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, and widespread opposition to the Vietnam war. Nixon ran on a platform to “restore law and order.”
President Richard Nixon accepted a renomination at the 1972 Republican National Convention, Miami Beach, Florida.
The 1972 Republican National Convention was supposed to take place in San Diego, but because of labor costs and scandals, the GOP changed course three months beforehand and decided to return to Miami Beach to re-nominate Richard Nixon for president.
The 1972 RNC set a new standard for party conventions, as it was a scripted media event with a schedule of speeches, setting the stage for the modern party convention.
First Lady Patricia Nixon spoke at the 1972 Republican National Convention, Miami Beach, Florida.
Richard Nixon’s daughters and their spouses— from left to right, Edward Cox, Tricia Nixon Cox, Julie Nixon Eisenhower and David Eisenhower—joined the party at the 1972 Republican National Convention.
The Democratic National Convention (DNC) has been held every four years since 1832. The convention is typically known for its pomp, with colored balloons and decorated hats, and plenty of cheering and yelling. Speakers from the party convey policy goals and the party officially declares its nominee for president.
With the Covid-19 pandemic necessitating social distancing, the 2020 DNC was designed in the form of shortened online programing. The digital format broke years of party tradition of gathering delegates in large arenas—including near the end of World War II, in 1944, and through the four DNC’s from 1960 through 1972.
Newspaper boys held up headlines noting the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler outside the 1944 Democratic Club before the Democratic National Convention.
LIFE staffers were sent to photograph national party conventions nearly every year they were held. The first major coverage of the Democratic National Convention appeared in the July 29th, 1940 issue. The article, “President Roosevelt Answers a Call to Run for a Third Term,” featured photographs of delegates and reporters at nightclubs where they “sought refuge from (a) dull convention.”
In later issues, LIFE published more color news coverage, so photographs of conventions through the 60’s show lively and patriotic displays of party nomination. The 1960 Democratic National Convention made it as cover news for the July 25th issue. It took place at the Memorial Sports Arena in Los Angeles, California. Senator Lyndon B. Johnson received the nomination for Vice President, and joined the Democratic ticket with John F. Kennedy.
Supporters of John F. Kennedy at the Democratic National convention, 1960.
Accompanying the glitter and buttons were a group of female supporters for John F. Kennedy known as the “Kennedy Cuties.” The group wore matching pinstripe dresses, conspicuous hats and colorful buttons. They cheered on attendees and danced in a conga line at the airport for Kennedys arrival to the convention.
Presidential nominee John F. Kennedy beside his Vice Presidential nominee Lyndon B. Johnson, Democratic National Convention, Biltmore Hotel, 1960.
Kennedy won the 1960 election, defeating incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon. By the fall of 1963 Kennedy and his team were preparing for the upcoming presidential election. Although he didn’t formally announce his candidacy, Kennedy’s motorcade travels and appearances were used to sound out policy themes for another presidential run.
Less than a year after Kennedy’s death, 1964 DNC took place at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. President Lyndon B. Johnson, was nominated for a full term and Senator Herbert Humphrey of Massachusetts was nominated for Vice President.
The 1964 Democratic National Convention in Jersey City Boardwalk Hall, New Jersey.
On the last day of the 1964 convention, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy introduced a short film in his brother’s memory. RFK was met with a standing ovation for nearly 20 minutes as the crowd cheered and yelled in adoration for him and his late brother. In addition to the short film, and RFK’s brief tribute, attendees were able to view memorial areas with photographs of President Kennedy.
Robert F. Kennedy on the phone at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.
Similar to the “Kennedy Cuties” at the 1960 DNC, Johnson had an all female group of supporters called the “Johnson Jersey Girls.” LIFE staff photographer Ralph Crane took photographs of the group dressed in matching dresses and enjoying rides at the Atlantic City boardwalk.
The “Jersey Johnson Girls” riding in a teacup ride at the Atlantic City boardwalk during the 1964 Democratic National Convention.
In the 1964 election Johnson defeated Republican nominee, Arizona senator Barry Goldwater, in a landslide. Johnson’s full term as president established several civil rights passages, a “war on poverty,” and increased involvement in the Vietnam war. The increased military presence sparked a strong anti-war movement, which set the stage for the following election, in 1968.
The 1968 DNC was held at the International Amphitheater in Chicago, Illinois. Johnson’s popularity rapidly declined due to Vietnam war involvement, and as a result he announced he would not seek re-election. Several democratic candidates competed for the nomination. They included LBJ’s Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Senator George McGovern of South Dakota, Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine, and George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama.
Delegates holding signs to support Hubert Humphrey at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Chicago.
Hubert Humphrey won the nomination for President, and Edmund Muskie received the nomination for Vice President. The convention discussion revolved around Vietnam war involvement, and civil rights unrest. Riots in hundreds of cities followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. earlier that spring.
Antiwar signs at the 1968 Democratic National Convention Democratic, Chicago.
Humphrey lost the 1968 election to Republican Richard Nixon, who promised to restore law and order in rioting cities and provide new leadership in the Vietnam war. Four years later, the 1972 Democratic National Convention took place at the Miami Beach Convention center in Miami Beach, Florida.
The convention nominated Senator George McGovern of South Dakota for President and Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri for Vice President. Eagleton was later dropped from the ticket and replaced by Sargent Shriver of Maryland.
Convention attendee wearing a hat with political buttons at the 1972 Democratic National Convention.
Humphrey lost the 1972 election to Richard Nixon in a landslide election, but the 1972 DNC implemented new delegate selection reforms. This became the first formal set of party rules for nomination procedure.
The following is the introduction to LIFE’s special issue The Road to VJ Day
On the evening of August 14, 1945, the words “OFFICAL—TRUMAN ANNOUNCES JAPANESE SURRENDER” streamed around the New York Times Tower’s news zipper. President Harry S. Truman’s proclamation marking the end of World War II unleashed a wave of communal ecstasy. Before long, some 2 million people packed into Times Square. They tossed hats into the air, cheered, embraced, and cried. From high up in office buildings and hotels, others threw down confetti and streamers. “The victory roar that greeted the announcement beat upon the eardrums until it numbed the senses,” observed the Times.
Meanwhile, locals dressed in ritualistic dragon costumes led processions along Chinatown’s narrow downtown streets as people crammed onto fire escapes, waved American and Chinese flags, and watched the sacred dance that symbolized peace. Across the East River in Queens, thousands staged impromptu parades, and in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, residents strung up effigies of Japanese emperor Hirohito. Soldiers, sailors, and small boys first used them for target practice, and then set them ablaze. Similar celebrations broke out from Maine to California. And far to the west, in Honolulu, where the war began for America with the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, church bells pealed, military bands strutted, and families turned out in their Sunday best, while soldiers, sailors, Marines, and civilians hopped into jeeps and cars and cruised around the city, blaring their horns.
The most devastating war in human history was truly, indisputably over. It was almost impossible to believe. In Europe, where Nazi Germany had surrendered on May 7, troops who had nervously been preparing to take part in a planned invasion of Japan let out a collective sigh of joyous relief. Paul Fussell was a second lieutenant based near Rheims, France. Thirty-six years later the author recalled in an essay for the New Republic that “for all the practiced phlegm of our tough facades we broke down and cried . . . We were going to live. We were going to grow to adulthood after all.”
Japan had begun the war in China by attacking Beijing in 1937; with Adolf Hitler’s ravenous aggression in Europe two years later, bloodshed spread like a pandemic across the globe, taking the lives of 65 million people, including more than 400,000 American servicepeople. After years of grinding, seemingly interminable conflict, two U.S. attacks on Japanese cities with a terrifying new weapon hastened the war’s end. The first use of the atomic bomb, on August 6, 1945, destroyed Hiroshima; the second, three days later, devastated Nagasaki. The twin mushroom clouds are believed to have killed almost 200,000 people and seemed to have been unleashed by an omnipotent, supernatural being, one whose wrathful power forced Hirohito—whom his people viewed as a descendant of the gods—to surrender.
Some 27,000 U.S. military members had been held prisoner by the emperor’s forces. One of those now liberated was Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright, who had been imprisoned since the Philippines fell in 1942. Wainwright was the highest-ranking American POW, and following his release General Douglas MacArthur made sure he was on hand to take part in the official Victory Over Japan Day on September 2, 1945, as a witness to Japan’s formal surrender onboard the USS Missouri.
While many states once celebrated that signing, now only Rhode Island remembers the occasion with its Victory Day. And of the 16 million Americans who served in the war, no more than 300,000 now survive. A dozen of those who fought at the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945 returned to that speck of a volcanic island, now called Iwo To, in March 2019 to commemorate one of the Pacific war’s bloodiest engagements, which took the lives of about 6,800 Americans and some 18,000 Japanese. Also at the ceremony were U.S. Marines and Japanese military troops. Yoshitaka Shindo, a member of Japan’s House of Representatives and the grandson of Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, the battle’s Japanese commander, also came to honor the fallen.
The once strapping and now bent American warriors all wondered why they were the lucky ones who could be there. “I had a lot of Marine buddies killed here,” said E. Bruce Heilman, who served as a sergeant (and died at 93 in October 2019). “For 74 years these guys have been dead, and I’ve been having family and marriages and success. You think about that. Why me?” And Barney Leone, a former machinist’s mate second class on the USS Nemasket, likewise remembered friends who headed off to their deaths, and how after the war he devoted his life to visiting schools to teach about the war and tell of the heroics of his comrades. “They died for each one of you,” he said. “The freedom that you’re enjoying, myself included, somebody paid for with their life. Appreciate the freedom you have, try to get along with each other. I’m 94 years of age now. I think I’m here to carry that mission out for those who are not able to be here to do that.”
Here are a selection of the many photos that appear in LIFE’s special issue The Road to VJ Day.
Cover image: Joe Rosenthal/AP/Shutterstock
Smoke billowed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.
U.S. Navy/National Archives
During the attack on Pearl Harbor, the battleship known as the West Virginia (center, foreground), shredded by bombs and torpedoes, was on fire and sinking. Behind her, the Tennessee was struck by two bombs but would emerge from repairs In May 1943 and go on to participate in some of the most critical actions in the war, from Tarawa to Okinawa. At the far left, the hull of the Oklahoma is visible behind rescue boats.
U.S. Navy
On Dec. 8, 1941, one day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked for a declaration of war against Japan as he addressed Congress in a joint session. War was declared by both houses within a half hour of the President’s speech.
Bettman/Shutterstock
In 1942 Japanese Americans saluted the flag during their forced internment during World War II.
Photo by Hansel Mieth/The LIFE Picture Collection via Shutterstock
Gen. Douglas MacArthur (C) and Gen. Richard Sutherland (L) and Col. Lloyd Lherbas waded ashore during the American landing at Lingayen Gulf on January 9, 1945.
Photo by Carl Mydans/The LIFE Picture Collection via Shutterstock
Two emaciated American civilians, Lee Rogers (L) and John C. Todd, sat outside a gym which had been used as a Japanese prison camp following their release by Allied forces liberating the city, February 1, 1945.
Photo by Carl Mydans/The LIFE Picture Collection via Shutterstock
In September 1945, soldiers raised the American flag at Atsugi Airbase in Japan as the first occupying forces arrived.
Photo by Carl Mydans/The LIFE Picture Collection via Shutterstock
October 1945: This Hiroshima neighborhood had been reduced to rubble by one of the two atomic bombs that the United States dropped on Japan, bringing World War II to an end.
Bernard Hoffman/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
On December 7, 2015 in Honolulu, U.S.S. Arizona survivor Lou Conter saluted the Arizona Remembrance Wall during a memorial service marking the 74th Anniversary of the attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor.
The deaths of two of the nation’s most influential civil rights advocates came during a time marked by protests for police reform and racial justice, in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. John Lewis, 80, and Cordy Tindell “C.T.” Vivian, 95, both died on July 17, 2020. At the time of his death. Lewis was serving his 34th year in the U.S. House of Representatives. Vivian was an important minister and leader. A story about some of Lewis and Vivian’s work in the 1960s, as well as unique LIFE photographs chronicling those events is below.
John Lewis (R) seated during a discussion with other freedom riders while in the basement of Reverend Ralph Abernathy’s Church, Montgomery, Alabama, May 1961.
A Mississippi National Guardsman standing on a bus next to freedom riders Reverend C.T. Vivian (C) and Paul Brooks (R), as they traveled from Montgomery, Alabama to Jackson, Mississippi, 1961.
Both John Lewis and C.T. Vivian were on the front lines of 1960’s racial justice reform. They were part of the original Freedom Riders and worked alongside Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Vivian served as King’s field general and Lewis helped organized the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech.
Several LIFE staffers photographed these early reform movements. Their images are extraordinary freeze-frames of the 1960’s fight for racial justice, capturing the passion and resilience of the activists and demonstrators.
Most LIFE photos taken of the 1961 Freedom Rides were never published. Many are from LIFE photographer Paul Schutzer who, four years earlier had photographed the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom March in Washington. He took photos of the riders while on the buses and in safe houses at stops on their routes.
LIFE photographer Joe Scherschel also captured scenes from the Freedom Rider’s trips, often photographing National Guard troops around the busses and the interactions the group had challenging “white only” sections within bus terminals. Scherschel and Schutzer’s photos are from the leg of the Freedom Rides from Montgomery, AL to Jackson, MI.
Reverend C.T. Vivian on a bus with the freedom riders traveling from Montgomery, AL to Jackson, Mississippi, 1961.
The Freedom Riders made a series of bus trips in 1961 to challenge segregated interstate travel through the South. The original group was made up of 13 activists (7 Black and 6 white) chosen by the Congress of Racial Equity (CORE). Their plan was to travel on Greyhound and Trailways busses from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans, Louisiana.
While driving through Southern states, they were met with violence from mobs of Klansmen and segregationists. Once, stopped at a bus station in Rock Hill, South Carolina, the group tried to enter a white waiting room together. John Lewis, then 21, was brutally attacked by a white police officer. Two of his fellow riders were also attacked and beaten. The Freedom Riders responded with non-violence and decided not to press charges.
Violence escalated as the group moved down to Alabama. The first bus was firebombed near Anniston. Klansmen ambushed the buses and nearly burned the riders alive. Similar violence occurred in Birmingham, where riders were dragged from the bus and beaten. At this point, the original Freedom Riders separated. Several flew to New Orleans to a rally, where they were scheduled to speak.
John Lewis continued on the rides along with several new group members from the Nashville Student Movement (NSM). C.T. Vivian was among the Nashville activists who replaced injured riders in Montgomery, Alabama. Vivian and Lewis were familiar with one another from having organized non-violent sit-ins and protests throughout Nashville.
The Greyhound bus station in downtown Montgomery became another site of white violence, so the Freedom Riders sought refuge in Reverend Ralph Abernathy’s First Baptist Church. Abernathy was also a leader of the civil rights movement and a close friend of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. On Sunday, May 21, 1961, more than 1,000 people and civil rights activists gathered in the church to show support for the Freedom Riders.
Rev. Ralph Abernathy delivering a sermon to activists and demonstrators taking refuge in his church, 1961.
While white angry mobs gathered outside, Schutzer and Scherschel took photographs of the riders, demonstrators, and fellow-supporters. The images are powerful portraits of the relentless fatigue experienced by the Black community during these acts of violence.
Freedom riders sitting during a service in Rev. Ralph Abernathy’s Church, Montgomery, Alabama, May 1961. John Lewis is looking at the camera. From left to right: John Lewis, Carl Bush, Joseph Carter, William Mithcell, rest unidentified.
Freedom riders sitting during a service in Rev. Ralph Abernathy’s Church, Montgomery, Alabama, May 1961. From left to right: John Lewis, Carl Bush, Joseph Carter, William Mithcell.
Portrait of Freedom Riders, in the basement of Rev. Ralph Abernathy’s Church, Montgomery, Alabama, May 1961. Pictured are, front row, from left: Allen Cason Jr., Frederick Leonard, Etta Simpson, William B. Mitchell, Ruby D. Smith, John Lewis, and Charles Butler; second row: Joseph Carter, Lucretia Collins, Patricia Jenkins, Carl Bush, Catherine Burks, and Paul E. Brooks; standing: Clarence Wright, Bernard La Fayette Jr., Rudolph Graham, and William Harbour.
The Freedom Riders met in the basement of the Rev. Ralph Abernathy’s church and got on the phone with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to call for help. Kennedy dispatched the National Guard, who used tear gas to disperse the violent crowd, and helped to escort the people inside the church to safety.
Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy during a press conference to discuss the violence facing the Freedom Riders, 1961.
The images of Lewis show his bandaged head, from wounds he received when he was beaten upon the group’s arrival to the Montgomery Greyhound bus terminal.
Demonstrators and activists gathered outside of Montgomery First Baptist church, while being protected from white violence and escorted by National Guard troops, 1961.
After Kennedy’s troops successfully disbanded the mob, the Freedom Riders were loaded onto a National Guard truck and moved from the church to the safe house of Dr. Richard Harris. There, they continued organizing plans for the Freedom Rides, and rested before their next departure. Schutzer went with the Freedom Riders to the safe house and continued taking photographs. Below, a view of bandaged John Lewis speaking with other Freedom Riders.
A bandaged John Lewis (center left) discussing with Rev. Abernathy and other Freedom Riders at a Montgomery safe house, 1961.
On May 24, 1961, after spending some time in the safe house, the Freedom Riders were escorted by the National Guard to the Montgomery Trailways bus station. The group, including John Lewis and C.T. Vivian, got on a bus that departed for Jackson, Mississippi. The troops Kennedy had sent in cordoned off streets and the station to protect the riders.
National guard soldiers patrolling around the Freedom Riders’ bus Montgomery, Alabama, 1961.
Freedom riders standing at a bus terminal ticket counter to get tickets for their 1961 ride from Montgomery, Alabama to Jackson, Mississippi. Reverend C.T. Vivian (back center) facing Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. leaning against the counter.
National Guard troops patrolling the Montgomery Grayhound bus terminal after violence broke out in response to the Freedom Riders’ demonstrations, 1961.
National Guard members sitting in front of Reverend C.T. Vivian on a bus with the freedom riders traveling from Montgomery, AL to Jackson, Mississippi, 1961.
Demonstrations of hate continued, including by the Lincoln Rockwell “Hate Bus.” Seen along the routes of the Freedom Riders, the bus was adorned with slogans supporting white supremacy. Groups of white men dressed as Nazis rode the bus to speaking engagements of civil rights activists and followed the Freedom Riders.
White men dressed as Nazis standing by a ‘Hate Bus’ to oppose the Freedom Riders, 1961.
Upon arrival to the Trailways bus station in Jackson, Mississippi, John Lewis and C.T. Vivian were arrested along with other Freedom Riders. The violence in Montgomery drew worldwide attention and forced the National government to intervene with civil rights hate crimes.
Rev. C.T. Vivian stepping into the Jackson Mississippi Police car after his arrest, 1961.
Freedom Riders Patricia Jenkins (Front left) and Ruby Smith (Center) being taken into custody by police officers during their arrest at the bus stop in Jackson, Mississippi, 1961.
Freedom Riders Ruby Smith (L) and Patricia Jenkins (C) being ordered by a white police officer during their arrest at the bus stop in Jackson, Mississippi, 1961.
C.T. Vivian went on to join the executive staff of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) as the Director of Affiliates. He coordinated local civil rights groups and advised King while organizing demonstrations in Alabama and Florida.
John Lewis also continued fiercely with his civil rights activism. Two years later, he went on to help plan the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which included King’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech. The march, which took place in August of 1963, was photographed by LIFE’s Francis Miller, Robert W. Kelly, and John Dominis.
Portrait of racial justice activists and organizers for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, August 1963. Bottom right to left: Roy Wilkens, Martin Luther King, A. Philip Randolph, Cleveland Robinson, Whitney Young. Top row right to left: Walter Reuther, Floyd McKissick, Reverend Eugene Carson Blake, John Lewis, Rabbi Joachim Prinz.
Civil rights activists standing arm in arm for the March on Washington, August, 1963. From left to right: John Lewis, Matthew Ahman, Floyd McKissick, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Rev. Eugene Carson Blake, Cleveland Robin, Whitney Young, Roy Wilkens, Walter Reuther.
