Witness Docs from Stitcher

Previously on Ernie's Secret

My phone was tapped, my car was bombed, my mail was open and scotch tape back.

You know all these things were not normal when you clearly were being watched.

Ernie's was someone who in my opinion was not a man who cow-towed.

I see him as more of an asset than a deficit to everything we did.

Mr. Weather's made a decision. He made a decision that he wanted to be an FBI informant.

It was a choice. For whatever reasons, this worked for him and this was a role he was comfortable with.

Several thousand Negro demonstrators are participating in this largest civil rights demonstration ever in Memphis, Tennessee.

It's March 28, 1968.

Police are on hand with about 600 officers. Almost the entire force is standing by here and case any troubled might break out.

1300 black sanitation workers have been striking for just over six weeks.

And today, Martin Luther King Jr. is flying in from New York to lead a march in their support.

The strikers are already waiting outside of Clayborne Temple, a massive church just south of Beale Street, where the march is set to begin.

Ernest Withers is there too. He's taking photos as usual, but this time he's also helping out.

The protest signs that day were attached to wooden sticks, and Ernest had been the one who rented the saw he used to make them.

Ernest gathers the striking workers outside for a group portrait. They stand in loose formation, about 30 across, several rose deep, tightly packed.

They raise their signs above their heads, as Ernest steps back and peers down through the lens of his camera.

In the frame, an indelible image, hundreds of black workers each holding a sign with the same simple message.

I am a man.

Dr. Martin Luther King's massive downtown march on Memphis is now underway. Several thousand Negroes are marching toward City Hall at this time.

Many of the demonstrators are carrying the sign, I am a man. They stretch out for several blocks.

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