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Parks, Gordon (1912–2006)

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Gordon Parks

Gordon Parks in Washington, DC, on September 12, 2000. Photograph by John Matthew Smith. CC BY-SA 2.0.

Gordon Parks was a world-renowned photographer, musician, film director, composer, author, and social justice activist. Best known for his documentary photojournalism that explored the impact of poverty and racial discrimination on communities of color, Parks’ photography appeared in many news and fashion publications, including Vogue and Life. He was the first African American to write, produce, and direct major motion pictures.

Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks was born to Sarah and Andrew Jackson Parks on November 30, 1912, in Fort Scott, Kansas. The youngest of fifteen children, Parks grew up in a community plagued by poverty and racial violence.

Following the death of his mother in 1928, the sixteen-year-old Parks moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, to live with his older sister. He then enrolled in Mechanic Arts High School and found a job bussing tables. Soon after, however, he had a fight with his ill-tempered brother-in-law and was kicked out. Parks found himself homeless in his first Minnesota winter. In his autobiography, A Choice of Weapons, Parks wrote about riding trolleys between Minneapolis and St. Paul to keep warm at night.

After several weeks of starvation, Parks almost resorted to robbery. It was only when he reminded himself of his mother’s teachings and high expectations for him that he stopped himself. Eventually, he found a job playing piano at a Minneapolis brothel and managed to stay off the streets. Parks had to look for housing and work several times over before his father, sisters, and brother finally joined him a few months later.

Parks managed to stay in school throughout this period. In 1929, he enrolled in Central High School, only to drop out a few months later due to the start of the Great Depression. He spent the next few years struggling to make ends meet and briefly toured with Larry Funk’s orchestra as its only Black musician.

In 1937, Parks was waiting tables on a train when he came across images of Depression-era migrant workers taken by Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographers. He was inspired to buy a camera at a pawn shop and became a self-taught photographer. In 1940, he was hired to shoot for Frank Murphy’s department stores in St. Paul; the same year, he and his wife Sally moved to Chicago.

In 1942, Parks won a photography award that landed him a job at the FSA in Washington, DC. After the FSA disbanded, he worked for the Office of War Information (OWI) and the Standard Oil Photography Project. With an eye for the beauty in the mundane and a natural attunement to human suffering, Parks developed a style that would make him one the most celebrated photographers of his time. He started freelancing for Glamour, Ebony, and Vogue, and produced fashion photography that captured the motion of models and garments. In 1948, his photographic essay on a Harlem gang leader earned him a job as the first African American photographer at Life, where he worked until 1972.

Parks’s photography and writing provided invaluable documentation of the nation’s economic upheavals and struggles towards racial equality. In addition to being a celebrated photographer, Parks was also a successful composer, writer, and filmmaker. In 1969, he adapted his bestselling novel The Learning Tree into a film and composed the score for it. His next film, Shaft (1971), was a critical and box-office success, inspiring many sequels. Parks published numerous books, including memoirs, novels, poetry, and books on photographic technique. In 1989 he produced, directed, and composed the music for a ballet production, Martin, dedicated to the late Martin Luther King, Jr.

Throughout his career, Parks won countless awards, including a Photographer of the Year award from the American Society of Magazine Photographers, a Notable Book Award from the American Library Association, and an Emmy. He was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, the NAACP Hall of Fame, and the International Photography Hall of Fame. In addition to over twenty honorary doctorates, he received the Governor’s Medal of Honor from the state of Kansas and the Congress of Racial Equality Lifetime Achievement Award.

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Bickal, James. “Gordon Parks' Advice to Aspiring Black Artists in the 1980s.” MPR News, October 10, 2017.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/10/10/history-gordon-parks-on-being-homeless-universal-art

“Gordon Parks.” Biography.com.
https://www.biography.com/artist/gordon-parks

“Gordon Parks.” Artnet.com.
http://www.artnet.com/artists/gordon-parks

“Gordon Parks.” Gordonparksfoundation.org.
http://www.gordonparksfoundation.org

Parks, Gordon. A Choice of Weapons. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1986.

——— . A Hungry Heart: A Memoir. 1st ed. New York: Atria Books, 2005.

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Turning Point

In 1940, Parks is hired to shoot photographs for Frank Murphy’s Town and Country department store in St. Paul. The same year, he held three solo photography exhibits in St Paul and Minneapolis.

Chronology

1912

Gordon Parks is born to Sarah and Andrew Jackson Parks on November 30, in Fort Scott, Kansas.

1928

Parks’ mother, Sarah Parks, dies on May 9. Gordon is sent to live in St. Paul, Minnesota, with his sister, Maggie Lee. He is soon kicked out of the house by his brother-in-law and becomes homeless.

1929

Parks enrolls at Central High School after a period of attending Mechanic Arts High School. When the stock market crashes in the fall, he loses his job and has to quit school.

1935

Parks begins working for the Northern Pacific Railroad as a porter/waiter.

1937

Parks buys his first camera from a pawnbroker. He gets his first photos developed at an Eastman Kodak shop. Impressed by his work, the shopkeeper allows him to exhibit his work on Fifth Street in Minneapolis.

1939

Parks starts taking pictures for the St. Paul Recorder newspaper in St. Paul.

1940

Parks begins shooting photographs for Frank Murphy’s Town and Country Department store in St. Paul. The same year, he and his wife Sally move to Chicago on the advice of Marva Louis, wife of boxer Joe Louis.

1942

Parks wins the Julius Rosenwald Fellowship and moves to Washington, DC, to work with Roy Stryker at the Farm Security Administration.

1944

Parks becomes a fashion photographer for Vogue.

1947

Parks publishes Flash Photography on Photo Techniques. It is his first book.

1948

Life hires Parks as a staff photographer in both fashion and photojournalism. The same year, Parks publishes his second book: Camera Portraits: The Techniques and Principles of Documentary Portraiture..

1968

Parks wins an Emmy Award for best television documentary for Diary of a Harlem Family.

1969

Parks becomes the first African American to direct a major Hollywood movie, an adaptation of his semi-autobiographical novel The Learning Tree.

1979

Parks publishes To Smile in Autumn: A Memoir.

1990

Parks publishes Voices in the Mirror: An Autobiography.

2006

Parks dies on March 7.