05
Travel Guide
Similar to the Green Book, this Black travel guide was created during the Jim Crow era, a time when segregation laws and racial violence made travel extremely dangerous for Black Americans. Hotels, restaurants, gas stations, and even entire towns could refuse service or threaten harm to Black travelers. Guides like this listed safe businesses, homes, and routes where Black people could eat, sleep, and refuel without fear. ​
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06
Emmit Till Pin
This pin commemorates Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley. Emmett was just 14 years old when he was brutally murdered in Mississippi in 1955 after being falsely accused of offending a white woman. His body was beaten, mutilated, and discarded in a river.
Mamie Till-Mobley made the courageous decision to hold an open-casket funeral so the world could see what racism had done to her son. Images of Emmett’s body shocked the nation and helped ignite the modern Civil Rights Movement.​
07
Power to the People Patch
Worn on clothing, bags, or jackets, badges like this functioned as portable declarations of political identity.
During the late 1960s and 1970s, such items were used by activists to signal solidarity, resistance, and collective purpose. The phrase itself rejected passive integration and instead asserted self-determination, community control, and resistance to state violence.Small in size but bold in message, the badge transformed everyday bodies into moving sites of protest.
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08
Joanne Chesimard WANTED Poster
This wanted poster features Joanne Chesimard, also known as Assata Shakur, a Black political activist associated with the Black Liberation Army in the 1970s. During this period, the U.S. government closely monitored, arrested, and targeted Black activists, particularly those connected to radical movements.
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Chesimard was convicted in the killing of a New Jersey state trooper in a highly contested trial. In 1979, she escaped from prison and later received political asylum in Cuba, where she remains today. The U.S. government continues to list her as a wanted fugitive.
To some, Assata Shakur is viewed as a symbol of resistance against racial injustice and state violence. To others, she is framed solely as a criminal.
