Visual Arts

"I am a man"

This 1968 photograph by Ernest Withers of a strike by Black sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, suggests with sterling clarity the litany of abuses and injustices that must have been visited upon them. Any of their demands (better pay, working conditions, etc) could have been written across the strikers’ placards. Instead, they unite in a fundamental declaration: I AM A MAN.

These words remind us that an unequal society is, at its heart, an offense to humanity itself. And if we truly uphold every person’s inherent worth and dignity, regardless of their station in life or occupation, justice and equity must necessarily follow.