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Ernest C. Withers (American, b. 1922)
I Am A Man, Sanitation Workers
Strike, Memphis, Tennessee, March 28th, 1968
Gelatin-silver print, 15 x 15 inches
Purchase in memory of Alice R. & Sol B. Frank, and the Art Purchase Fund
© Ernest Withers

Sanitation workers assemble in front
of Clayborn Temple for a solidarity march. This was Dr. King's last march. On the 53rd day of the Memphis Sanitation Workers' strike, a week after this picture was taken, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated on the Lorraine Motel balcony.

Withers could be called the original photographer for the Civil Rights Movement. Documenting the Movement from the 1950s through the 1960s, Withers produced a book on
the Emmett Till murder that became a catalyst for the push toward equal rights. Working as a self-employed photographer based in Memphis, Tennessee, Withers was in a unique position to record the making of history. However, he was not merely a recorder of this history but was very much an active participant. In the 1950s, he photographed players of the Negro Baseball League, including such icons as Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays. Based on legendary Beale Street, Withers has a significant number of photographs of the emerging blues, jazz, and rock and
roll performers such as Elvis Presley, B. B. King, Tina Turner, Ray Charles, Isaac Hayes, and Aretha Franklin.

The Chrysler Museum organized the first traveling retrospective exhibition on the work of Ernest Withers. After opening in January 2000 in Norfolk,
the exhibition traveled to eight other venues, concluding the tour in fall 2003. The Chrysler collection contains 20 photographs by Withers.

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