“I Am A Man” Protest Placard Leads Anti-Slavery to Civil Rights Auction

An original “I Am A Man” protest placard from the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike sold for $58,427 at Hake’s. The cardboard placard measuring 13¾ inches by 21¼ inches with “I Am A Man” in bold black ink nearly tripled the $20,000 high estimate.  

Another highlight was a circa 1872 thin, canary-yellow broadside advertising a Maine Republican Party rally announcing African American social abolitionist orator, writer, and statesman Frederick Douglass and former Maine governor and state Republican Party co-founder Israel Washburne as guest speakers. This topped its $20,000 high estimate with a selling price of $25,486. Its rarity is partly the result of rain that day in August 1872, thus reducing the chances of the 29-inch by 21-inch broadside's survival.

Additional results included:   

• an 1856 pro-James Buchanan satirical broadside headlined “Rally! No Popery! No Slavery! No Rum!” sold for $10,038
• Eugene Warburg’s circa-1856 Copeland Staffordshire Parian porcelain statuette of the 'Uncle Tiff' character from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Dred ($95,592) 
• a glossy button with a full-color depiction of Theodore Roosevelt and Booker T Washington at an October 16, 1901 White House dinner, the first time an African American was invited to dine at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue ($14,401)