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UT Martin J. Houston Gordon Museum Hosts “I AM A MAN” Exhibition


African-American men march with signs around their neck with the words "I AM A MAN", white men are spaced between them every three or four people. The military has guns with bayonets facing the protesters. Tanks are in the background, going down the street the protesters march down.
(Photo/University Relations)

MARTIN, Tenn. – The University of Tennessee at Martin J. Houston Gordon Museum is hosting I AM A MAN: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1960-1970, an exhibition from ExhibitsUSA, a national program of Mid-America Arts Alliance. The exhibit features a wide range of photographs taken by amateurs, local photojournalists and internationally known photographers.


Viewers of the exhibition will recognize the photographs of protestors who carried signs with

messages such as “I Am A Man” or were seated at segregated lunch counters as iconic images associated with the movement. Numerous other photographs presented in the exhibition have rarely been seen until now. These photographs provide a vivid visual story of the evolution of the civil rights movement and shed light on the movement’s integration in daily living in the American South.


I AM A MAN: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1960-1970, is open for public

viewing until March 10. The J. Houston Gordon Museum is open to the public 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays. The gallery is located off the Paul Meek Library lobby through the Corbitt Special Collections reading area. Parking will be in the Paul Meek Library parking lot on Wayne Fisher Drive off Mt. Pelia Road. Parking permits are available online at www.utm.edu/departments/publicsafety  by selecting the “Online Visitor Parking Permit” link.


For more information, contact Samuel Richardson, J. Houston Gordon Museum curator, at 731-881-7094 or sricha12@utm.edu.

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