The Postcards

 

Through powerful archival and contemporary images of Black dignity and protest, Postcards from Forever highlight the timelessness and perpetuity of anti-Black racism and police brutality in the U.S., while also creating a space where people can demand that their legislators work toward a more accountable, equitable future. Mail these postcards to change the world.

You can send real postcards online through our partners at Congress Cards, download & print them at your local print shop, or share as stories on social media.

Postcards from Forever is a project in progress. More photographers will be added on a rolling basis.

 

2015: Shut it down. Kirah Moe raises her fist in the fight to get justice for Laquan McDonald, a Black teenager shot sixteen times by Jason Van Dyke – the first police officer in 5 decades convicted for killing a civilian.

Jon Lowenstein

1970: Black Panther Convention, Lincoln Memorial. A man on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial holding a banner for the Revolutionary People's Constitutional Convention.

Marion S. Trikosko, Thomas J. O'Halloran/Library of Congress

1968: Resurrection City in the mud. Washington, D.C.

Marion S. Trikosko, Thomas J. O'Halloran/Library of Congress

1963: Woman being carried to police patrol wagon during demonstration in Brooklyn, New York.

Dick DeMarsico/World Telegram & Sun photo/Library of Congress

2012: Police detain a young woman in Chicago. The day before the police had shot and killed a young man one block east of this event. A fight ensued between two groups of women. The police broke up the fight and detained the women.

Jon Lowenstein

1963: March on Washington. Demonstrators marching in the street holding signs.

Marion S. Trikosko/Library of Congress

1964: Martin L. King press conference. Location unidentified.

Marion S. Trikosko/Library of Congress

2007: Barack and Michelle campaign at the Bud Billiken. Barack Obama and his wife Michelle greet throngs of supporters at the 79th Annual Bud Billiken Parade on Chicago's South Side. The Bud Billiken is the country's largest predominantly African American parade.

Jon Lowenstein

2012: South Side Pietat. Young love as envisioned by the couple on the steps of a South Side church.

Jon Lowenstein

1999: Charles Jones, 20, is with his son. He wants the responsibility of caring for his children and his family. He often doesn’t get enough sleep because both he and his girlfriend, Krea, work to provide for their family.

Joseph Rodriguez

2016: Steve Blount (ex-gang member) visits the church his grandparents took him to as a boy. Founded in 1909, Mt. Carmel Missionary Baptist Church is the only African American church in Boyle Heights, LA.

Joseph Rodriguez

2020: Minneapolis, Minnesota

Joshua Lott

2014: Ferguson, Missouri

Joshua Lott

2009: Keep in flight. A young man floats in the air while jumping on a trampoline at a summer block club party in the Auburn-Gresham neighborhood on Chicago's South Side.

Jon Lowenstein

1944: George Stinney's 1944 mug shot. George Junius Stinney, Jr. is the youngest American to be sentenced to death and executed (14). His conviction was overturned 70 years later, with the court ruling that he had not received a fair trial.

Photographer unknown

1942: A Harlem scene.

Gordon Parks/Library of Congress

1945: Members of the 332nd Fighter Group attending a briefing at Ramitelli, Italy. The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of African-American and Caribbean-born military pilots who fought in World War II. They formed the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the US Army Air Forces.

Tony Frissell/Library of Congress

1942: Boy at the playground. Anacostia, D.C. Frederick Douglass housing project.

Gordon Parks/Library of Congress

1969: Signs in Downtown for Martin L. King. Location Unidentified.

Marion S. Trikosko/Library of Congress

2012: Candy store window. Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X. Candy Store window. South Side of Chicago.

Jon Lowenstein

1940: At the bus station. Durham, North Carolina.

Jack Delano/Library of Congress

1969: Policeman. Washington, D.C.

Marion S. Trikosko/Library of Congress

2012: Roll call. Chicago Police Department roll call in front of a local fast food joint on 75th and Dorchester on Chicago's south Side.

Jon Lowenstein

2012: Sisters in protest; Chicago. Community organizer Ameena Matthews comforts protestor Kirah Moe while protesting the killing of Laquan McDonald, shot sixteen times by officer Jason Van Dyke. The video was withheld from public view until a judge ordered it released.

Jon Lowenstein

2012: The day after. Amanda Jackson consoles Sheena Hancock at the site of her sister Janeen’s murder in Merrill Park in the Jeffrey Manor neighborhood in Chicago. Two more people were shot and killed in the same incident on that July evening.

Jon Lowenstein

Martha Biggs, mother of 4, braids her daughter's hair. Martha's family was evicted on Chicago Housing Authorities' "one-strike rule". With the help of Chicago's Anti-eviction campaign, Martha reclaimed a foreclosed home in the city. 

Brent Lewis

1862: Group of "contrabands" at Foller's house. "Contrabands" were slaves who escaped to Union lines during the Civil War. Photograph from the main eastern theater of war, The Peninsular Campaign.

James F. Gibson/Library of Congress

2014: Families and friends of Shantel Davis and Kimani Grey, both killed in separate incidents by the NYPD, hold a memorial event in their honor and others impacted by police violence. Nina Berman

2014: Families and friends of Shantel Davis and Kimani Grey, both killed in separate incidents by the NYPD, hold a memorial event in their honor and others impacted by police violence.

Nina Berman

2005: Walter A. McDaniel, 31, sits in his apartment watching television. “It took me six years to build my home and it took six hours for it all to be wiped away.”

Joseph Rodriguez

1943: A woman and her dog in Harlem.

Gordon Parks/Library of Congress

1963: March on Washington. Marchers with SCLC sign for the Savannah Freedom Now Movement.

Marion S. Trikosko/Library of Congress

 


You are free to print the materials (postcards), distribute them offline and share them online. You may not remix, transform or build upon the materials. You may not use the materials for commercial purposes.

 

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