Marchers On Main Street: from the portfolio I Am A Man

Artist Ernest C. Withers (American, 1922 - 2007)

Publisher Panopticon Press, Tony Decaneas, Waltham, MA

Datephotographs: 1956-1968; portfolio: 1994

Dimensionssheet: 19 7/8 x 15 15/16 in. (50.5 x 40.5 cm)
image: 14 5/8 x 14 7/8 in. (37.1 x 37.8 cm)
Sheet, according to WAC form: 11 x 14 in. (27.9 x 35.6 cm)

MediumGelatin silver print

ClassificationPhotographs

Credit LineMrs. George W. Stevens Fund

Object number

2003.46I

Not on View

DescriptionPortfolio with letterpress text and ten gelatin silver prints.

Label TextA silent march of 20,000 through Memphis the day before Martin Luther King’s funeral was led by King’s wife Coretta Scott King and three of their children. In 110 cities across the country, riots broke out in the days following the assassination. Tensions ran high in Memphis, too—the National Guard, armed with rifles and tanks, lined the streets during the march while helicopters circled overhead.Published Referencescf.: Pictures Tell a Story, Norfolk: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2000.

cf.: Let Us March On! Selected Civil Rights photographs of Ernest C. Withers, 1955-1968, Boston, Massachusetts College of Art, 1992.

Exhibition History

Toledo Museum of Art, People Get Ready: 50 Years of Civil Rights, June 27-September 21, 2014.