Entry · catalog no. 5018
I Am a Man
/ /aɪ æm ə mæn/ /eye am uh MAN
phrase · Memphis, Tennessee · 1960s
✓ Verified
1.
The message printed on placards carried by Black sanitation workers during the 1968 Memphis strike, a demand for recognition, dignity and union rights that became one of the best-known protest signs of the civil rights era.
“Every man in that line carried a sign that said I AM A MAN.”
Origin & Attribution
The Memphis sanitation strike began on February 12, 1968, days after two Black workers, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, were crushed to death in the packing mechanism of a city truck on February 1. The placards were a collaboration of the strikers, union officials of AFSCME, and civil rights activists and clergy; no single author is established, and the strikers' own claim to dignity is the point. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed a mass meeting at Mason Temple on March 18. The wording answers a much older question: Josiah Wedgwood's 1787 anti-slavery medallion for the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade asked "Am I not a man and a brother?" The 1968 slogan is that question turned into a statement.
1787
Wedgwood's anti-slavery medallion asks 'Am I not a man and a brother?'
1968
Memphis sanitation workers strike
1968
King addresses the strikers at Mason Temple
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
Memphis, Tennessee · 1960s
Spoken by
Black Memphians, labor and civil rights communities
$IAMAMAThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady58 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
80/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1968
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
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@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
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Citations & Sources
■
New-York Historical Society, 'Sanitation Workers, the Declaration of Independence, and an 18th-Century English Potter: Tracing the Roots of the Iconic I Am a Man Poster'
online
■
Wayne State University Libraries, 'I Am a Man' — the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike
online
■
+ Cite a sourceJosiah Wedgwood, anti-slavery medallion, 'Am I Not a Man and a Brother?'
1787
See also