The iconic “I Am A Man” posters were used during the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike and answers the question “Am I not a man and a brother” asked by British and American abolitionists. This tetraptych explores the words behind the phrase in relation to key moments in African-American history from the Antebellum period to the Civil Rights Movement. The type arrangement tells two different stories; the first either rearranges or removes words from the phrase “I Am A Man” to alter its meaning according to the time period depicted (for example, the first poster has “Man” crossed out showing how Black people were not considered as human beings during the Antebellum era), while the other surrounds that text to represent that time period. The fourth poster tells you without question “I AM a man and human” as a declaration of independence against oppression.
