On View
On viewObject number2002.52
Daddy, I Want to be Free
Artist
Ernest C. Withers
(American, 1922 - 2007)
Date1961
Mediumgelatin silver print
Dimensionsimage: 6 7/8 × 7 1/2 in. (17.5 × 19.1 cm)
sheet: 10 × 8 in. (25.4 × 20.3 cm)
mat: 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm)
sheet: 10 × 8 in. (25.4 × 20.3 cm)
mat: 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm)
Credit LineGift of Ronda Stryker
Exhibition History"It Speaks to Me" KIA School Commons (Feb. 3 - May 1, 2005).
"Energy and Inspiration: African American Art from the Permanent Collection," KIA Long Gallery (Jan. 13 - Apr. 14, 2006).
"Common Ground: African American Art from the Flint Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, and the Muskegon Museum of Art," FIA, Flint, Michigan (Feb. 8 - Apr. 26, 2015), KIA, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (Aug. 21 - Nov. 15, 2015), Muskegon Museum of Arts, Muskegon, Michigan (
"Light Works: A Century of Photography," KIA traveling exhibit. Nassau County Museum of Art, (Nov. 19, 2016 - Mar. 5, 2017).
"Resilience: African American Artists as Agents of Change," at the KIA (September 14, 2019 - February 16, 2020)
"Resilience: African American Artists as Agents of Change," [Travel Version] at the Dennos Museum Center, Traverse City, MI (June 6, 2021 - August, 15, 2021)Label TextAn Army photographer during World War II, Ernest C. Withers returned to the U.S. and began documenting Black life in the segregated South of the 1950s and 1960s. These two compelling black-and-white photographs from Withers’ vast archive were taken in Memphis nearly seven years apart, documenting the struggle for civil rights in the American South.
The first, taken during a 1961 protest on Main Street, shows William Edwin Jones pushing his daughter in a stroller while wearing a sign declaring “Daddy, I Want To Be Free.” The second, made during the 1968 sanitation workers’ strike, depicts demonstrators carrying “I Am A Man” signs, protesting unsafe working conditions following the deaths of two workers. Together, the images emphasize demands for dignity, safety, and respect, linking two different moments of activism to the broader movement for civil rights and labor justice.
[Label Text: For the People: America at 250 Exhibition, June 27 - October 4, 2026]
