Text from The Encyclopedia of Photography (1984)

Parks, Gordon
American, 1912-

Gordon Parks, born in Fort Scott, Kansas, worked as a piano player, busboy, dining car waiter, and semi-professional basketball player. He first worked as a photographer under Roy Stryker in the Farm Security Administration (1942-1943) and again for Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (1945-1948). In 1949 he became a member of the staff of Life magazine.

Regarded as a major photojournalist, Parks has also earned considerable distinction as a writer, poet, novelist, composer, and filmmaker. He produced, directed, and wrote the script and music for the film based on his novel The Learning Tree, and directed the films Shaft, Shaft's Big Score, and Leadbelly. In his early years he also photographed high fashion and beautiful color still lifes.

It could not have been easy to be the first recognized black professional photographer in America. Whatever the difficulties, Parks was successfully able to overcome the slights and anger to do the job. Many of his memorable essays for Life dealt with the Black Revolution of the 1960s: "The Black Muslims" (1963), "The Death of Malcolm X" (1965), "On the Death of Martin Luther King, Jr." (1968), "The Black Panthers and the Police" (1970), and "Papa Rage: A Visit with Eldridge Cleaver" (1970). His style in these essays is more direct than poetic, more realistic than sentimental. The photographs are not those of a hard hitting news reporter but the work of an objective observer; they are gentle in their compassion.

Parks's extraordinary essay on Flavio da Silva, a poverty stricken Brazilian boy whom Parks found dying in the notorious slums above Rio de Janeiro in 1961, is an unforgettable story. The photographs and diary of his three-month stay with Flavio and his family touched off a chain of events that went to the heart of journalism. Parks became very attached to Flavio, and was more than an objective reporter. He made it possible for Flavio to receive the medical attention needed to survive the illness and early death that was predicted for him. Parks was not able to document poverty and despair without becoming involved in the lives of the people he photographed.

There are many other aspects to Parks's work. In 1981 he opened an exhibition of large prints that combined photography and oil painting. They are colorful and graphic and show a yearning for the abstract. His current projects include a novel based on the life of the painter J.M.W. Turner.

In addition to other citations, in 1972 Gordon Parks received the coveted Spingarn Medal, the highest award presented by the NAACP. He also is the recipient of 14 honorary degrees.