The Charlotte Film Festival on Thursday awarded its Indie Spirit Award for Best Documentary Short Film to “I Am A Man: From Memphis, A Lesson in Life.”

The 27-minute documentary honors the Memphis sanitation workers whose 1968 strike drew the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to the city’s Lorraine Hotel on April 4 of that year.

Much of the film is told through the eyes of 77-year-old Elmore Nickleberry, who marched with King and still drives a Memphis garbage truck. The award was the film’s fifth so far and its third this year in North Carolina.

Calvin Taylor, a Memphis resident who helped conceive the project, said the documentary was meant to give overdue recognition to the courageous men whose efforts were overshadowed by the horrors of King’s assassination.

Taylor said he never imagined the film would win such critical acclaim.

Aside from the Qcity award, “I Am A Man” in May took Best Documentary and Grand Prize at the Cape Fear Independent Film Festival in Wilmington. It also won awards at film festivals in Reno, Nev., and Beverly Hills, Calif.

“All of this is a surprise to me,” Taylor told Qcitymetro.com. “I think it’s been a surprise to all of us.”

The film was written and co-produced by John Hubble, principal of Old Bridge Media in Vallejo, Calif.

Taylor, a vice president at the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau, said he came to know the city’s sanitation workers in the 1960s as the lone black reporter at the Memphis Commercial-Appeal newspaper. After King’s assassination, he said, much of the nation simply forgot about the plight of the sanitation workers and the brave stand they took.

He said he always promised himself and others that he would rectify that.

Taylor said he’s been surprised by even the number of older Americans who say they've never heard the story of the city's sanitation workers, who went on strike in '68 to demand higher pay and better working conditions.

In the film, some the former workers recall paychecks that barely covered their rent and coming home dripping with maggots. King, who at the time was expanding his Civil Rights campaign to include issues of social and economic justice, flew to Memphis to support the workers’ strike.

“I honestly thought that everyone throughout the nation knew about them,” Taylor said. “What I’m finding out is that everyone knows about King, but they don’t even know what brought him to Memphis.”

Taylor said the film has a curriculum guide and will be used in some Memphis charter schools.

TO SEE THE FILM:

• Watch online at www.iamamanthemovie.com. (Viewers must pay a donation – no amount specified -- by debit or credit.)
• The movie will be screened Sunday at 3 p.m. at Queens University. Cost: $8

Sign up for our Weekly Email Newsletter Email: For Email Marketing you can trust

Other Ways to Share Twitter Del.icio.us MySpace

Discussions and Submission Agreement