A statement for anyone who values social justice, the cover of this journal is Glenn Ligon's iconic 1988 painting "Untitled (I Am a Man)," part of the National Gallery of Art collection in Washington DC. The work is a representation of the signs carried twenty years earlier by 1,300 striking African-American Memphis sanitation workers protesting unequal wages and the deaths of two coworkers due to dangerous working conditions. The striking workers adopted the slogan "I Am a Man" as a variant on the first line of Ralph Ellison's prologue to "Invisible Man," "I am an invisible man." By removing the word "invisible," the Memphis strikers made themselves visible in standing up for their rights. On April 3, 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. traveled to Memphis to address the striking workers, delivering his historic "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech. It was his last act of leadership in the social justice movement, the next day he was tragically assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.
Heavy paper cover, substantial lined pages within. The story of the cover art and artist is printed inside back cover.
4.75 × 7"
144 lined pages
