I AM A MAN PIN

I Am a Man Enamel Pin

Academy Museum Exclusive
Created to celebrate the Regeneration exhibit at the Academy Museum by PINTRILL

I Am a Man

Posters have long been used to convey powerful messages of protest and change. Here, “Black Is Beautiful” and “I AM a Man” showcase the personal, cultural, and sociopolitical values of the civil rights and Black Power movements. “I AM a Man” was originally designed for the Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike in 1968 to protest inhumane working conditions. It was during Martin Luther King Jr.’s trip to Memphis in support of these efforts that he was assassinated, and the poster immediately assumed a new meaning, challenging violence against Black citizens more broadly

Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Arthur J. "Bud" Schmidt