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Glenn Ellis gives a personal account of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, and remembers his four friends: Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Denise McNair.

In early September 1957, nine African-American students faced a violent mob when they attempted to enter the newly desegregated Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed this executive order on September 23, 1957 to enforce an orderly desegregation.

The freedom riders, black and white, joined together to effect change. Traveling across the South while enduring ridicule and pain, they helped ensure that doors were open to all people, regardless of skin color.

This photograph from the Associated Press shows Martin Luther King Jr. in a crowd of people at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on Aug. 28, 1963.

President John F. Kennedy made these notes on May 12, 1963, in response to multiple bombings and subsequent rioting in Birmingham, Ala.

From a novel that raised public consciousness about conditions in the meatpacking industry, these excerpts provide a glimpse into early 20th century industrialization from labor's vantage point.