Ernest Withers’s photograph of the sanitation strike in Memphis in 1968 is similarly well known today. It is often interpreted as an imagined future. It records Black workers’ mass walkout in February 1968 and their infamous placards that read “I AM A MAN” in protest against discriminatory treatment and life-threatening working conditions. With their disparate clothing and physiques, the men were united by their race and their declaration of shared identity – as men.
Read moreThe Wealth Gap Existed Long Before COVID-19
In 1997, the Asian avian influenza (H5N1) commonly referred to as “bird flu” circulated around the globe but affected few people, even when it reemerged in 2003. In 2009, a new H1N1 influenza virus also emerged. But it too, like the 1957 and 1968 H1N1 influenza viruses did not shut down the entire world.
Read more