A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks

In a British documentary, Gordon Parks is described as the only Negro staff photographer at LIFE magazine. He is also a composer, an author, and film director. As a black man, Parks believes he has to be more productive and talented than his white counterparts because if ever pitted against them, he must prove to be too valuable to ever consider being terminated. Devin Allen is a photographer who takes pictures of the Black Lives Matter protests and riots in Baltimore. He recalls going to Barnes and Noble and seeing the work of Gordon Parks illustrating gang life in Harlem. Allen realized how powerful a picture was in telling a story. Allen's career took off in 2015 when Freddie Gray was killed by police. At the uprising at Camden Yards, Allen snapped a photo which became the cover of TIME magazine which jump started his career. Gordon Parks said he might have chosen the gun or knife as his weapon, but it was the camera where he could express his view of the injustice of racism and the downtrodden in America. Parks grew up in the quintessential black experience of the time in the South. In Kansas, he was proximate to lynching and racial terrorism. He discovered he had to be two people: one personality around white folks and another side he only shared with his family. When at least four friends of Gordon's were killed, Gordon's mother felt Kansas was no longer a safe place Gordon got a job as a waiter in the dining car of a train and started to tour the country. It was hardly glamorous, with Gordon often experiencing poverty, drunks, and addiction in the places he was able to stay. Gordon learned photographer from training manuals. His studio was the kitchen of his home and his lights were made from tin cans. Parks took an interest in photographing the value, interest, and art in the lives of ordinary black people and was to sell these images to the newspapers. In 1942, Parks receives a fellowship to be the photographer for the Farm Security Administration in Washington, D.C. The FSA was resetting people who had lost their farms in the Dustbowl. They hired photographers and film makers to document what they were doing. Parks was mentored by Roy Stryker who was in charge of the documentation effort. During this time, Parks did a series of photos of a colored cleaning woman named Ellen Watson who worked at their offices. His work seemed to say that here was a person who was giving her all for a country that did not recognize her as a complete person. Parks continued to work with Watson photographing her in her home and community. A famous photo shows four generations of her family within the context of a very small room on her apartment in a very sophisticated way. Latoya Ruby Frazier is inspired by Parks to attempt to change that which she does not approve of in the world by exposing it with the lens of the camera. In 2016, Frazier is commissioned by Elle magazine to document the Flint Water crisis. It was during this time, Frazier met Shea Cobb and her daughter Zion. Shea was at the point of making the decision to either stay in Flint or return to where her father lived in Mississippi where he said the water would not kill them. Her photo essay continued four years later in Mississippi continuing the story of the Flint family. Gordon taught Frazier to be present, talk with, and empathize with her subjects. Frazier also claimed she was interested in the collaborations Parks did with Ralph Ellison in the early 1940's. Parks and Ellison did two such collaborations, one about the psychiatric needs in Harlem and another depicting scenes from Ellison's novel, "The Invisible Man". Taking some of these photographs as a portfolio, Parks approached LIFE magazine who paid him $500 for a story on a Harlem gang leader. Starting from a broad approach, Parks contacted local police to find such a gang leader. The police knew several but did not believe Parks would be allowed to photograph them. In one such precinct, Gordon met Red Jackson, a notorious street gang leader. He spent an extended time with Red. Eventually, he photographed Red in his everyday life with his family. He also photographed his gang and fights they would have. At one point, Parks photographed one of Red's gang who was killed and Red's vow of revenge. Jamel Shabazz photographs kids in Brooklyn. Shabazz grew up as a victim to the streets until he found the weapon of the 35 mm camera. Shabazz worked in the department of corrections for 20 years. When he was placed at Rikers Island, he thought of it as his new assignment. With crack proliferation on the street, he able to photograph the results of the epidemic, the brutality inside the prison, and lack of rehabilitation. Once back on the streets, Shabazz would meet young people and seek to build them up telling them he saw greatness in them that he wanted to photograph. He did not want them to end up in a place like Rikers Island. With the success of the Harlem Gang Leader project, LIFE magazine hired Gordon Parks as its first African American photographer. By the mid 1950's Parks was well established in the industry. In 1956, Gordon is sent to Alabama to capture images of segregated life in the Jim Crow south. Just months before, Emmett Till was lynched and murdered in an act of racial hatred in Mississippi. Jet magazine published the photos of Till's ravaged body and drew attention to the persecution of blacks in the South. In his pictorial, Parks used color photography to show in stark terms the different lives of blacks and whites in Alabama. He focused on segregated entrances and facilities for blacks and whites, expressing the longing, discomfort and distraction it caused the African Americans of that day. Ava DuVernay, the director of Selma, learned about the intimacy that Gordon created between the camera and the subject that brought the audience in. DuVernay says that actors have the same goal, to draw an audience into the way the actor is being and feeling in the moments portrayed. The breadth of Gordon Parks work is far broader than the social justice movement. Parks did everything from photojournalism to portraits to abstraction to fashion. The juxtaposition of his work can be fascinating. One subject was Gloria Vanderbilt, among the wealthiest women of her time. Vanderbilt said Gordon was the first African American person she ever became friends with. Despite the different upbringing, they connected as artists as Vanderbilt was a playactor and also a fashion designer. Parks, as a photographer gained respect to move in other's spaces without interfering with what was going on. In 1957, Parks was assigned to do an expose on the crime crisis in America. He presented crime as an ambiguity. He also showed the humanity around crime. There were also photos of police that portrayed how blacks in the north perceived police as menacing and imposing of law and order. Bryan Stevenson uses Park's work in The Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, to create a narrative in their effort to change hearts and minds to eliminate prejudice and racial injustice. The black experience illustrated in LIFE magazine was often set against the magazine's advertising which showed white happy carefree Americans. The contrast was eye opening to the magazine's readers. In 1963, Gordon Parks was sent as the uniquely qualified black photographer on the staff of LIFE magazine to photograph the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X was Parks' initial contact on the story. Together, they had to seek the permission of Elijah Muhammad to continue. The Muslim leader was skeptical of someone working for "the white devils". Parks spent several months on the assignment and got unprecedented access to the religion. He was impressed with the conformity and order of the mosques. Gordon saw them training German Shepherd guard dogs. He met families who would renounce their children over their religion. Malcolm X requested the Parks fly out to Los Angeles when Ronald Stokes was killed in a police shooting. Parks put himself in the line of fire to stay close to the Nation of Islam leadership. From this he earned the respect of Malcolm X who referred to him as "brother". The story in LIFE was written in a rather inflammatory way. Parks had his own text in the coverage where he became an activist by pointing out the range of concerns of the brotherhood are broader to the entire black community in America. Spike Lee used photographs taken during this period when he recreated the eulogy delivered for Malcolm X. Lee understood from Parks, the need to establish trust with a subject. When Lee films a documentary, he is required to ask subjects to open up about very painful incidents in their lives. One such film was "4 Little Girls" which discusses the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist church in Birmingham. Parks' work documents many of the well-known personalities prominent in the Civil Rights Movement in the second half of the 20th Century when blacks left their complacency and demanded justice. Parks, however, was reluctant to take on the Muhammed Ali story. At the time, Ali had converted to Muslim, opposed the Vietnam War, and was riled by the press. Parks began to understand that Ali's art was simply his hands and his attitude. In the photos of Ali, Devin Allen learned that clarity is not always the goal of the photo. In a blur, emotion can be expressed. Allen has focused on sports in Baltimore in recent times. Following Parks lead, Allen has imbedded himself in Coach Calvin's boxing gym and has been able to capture the humanity of Calvin and the kids he trains to box. Merv Griffin interviewed Gordon Parks after he introduced the world to Flavio, an impoverished boy from Brazil that put a face on the problem of poverty in Latin America. The photos inspired donations that brought Flavio to America and saved his life from his asthmatic condition. By 1969, Gordon Parks had achieved a celebrity status which somewhat compromised his ability to be just a somewhat anonymous black man taking pictures with his camera. Parks, however, was able to speak the language of celebrity on a series of talk shows he appeared on advocating for the causes he supported. Parks moved on to film, which he saw as an even more powerful media to reach even greater numbers of people. He directed a movie drawn from his novel, "The Learning Tree", which portrayed some elements of his life growing up as a young Negro in Kansas. It was the first major studio movie directed by an African American. He followed this effort up with Shaft, working with Isaac Hayes to conceptualize the familiar theme song. Shaft, in many ways, personified the Black Power movement that was going on in that era. John Shaft was a man who moved freely among the boroughs of New York, from the radicals, to the gangsters to the police, just as Parks did during his career. Richard Roundtree, who played John Shaft, even realized his wardrobe for the character was Gordon Parks' selections supplied by his tailor. Parks directing career, however, was short lived. Blaxploitation movies created revenue but had repetitive plots that eventually lost their audience. Parks was never considered for another type of movie by Hollywood producers. He blamed the color of his skin. Parks never achieved the greatness or the messaging in film as he had hoped. In later life, Parks had hoped to compose more and write more, but realized he was running out of time. He never stopped working. In 1998, XXL magazine wanted to recreate "A Great Day in Harlem" photo which featured jazz artists some 40 years early. In 1998, the photo would feature some of the greatest artist in hip hop with many rappers present. After much convincing, Parks finally agreed to be the photographer which legitimized the hip hop genre. Parks left a timeless collection of images which serve as models and inspiration for today's modern black photographers. They feel inspired to use the camera as a powerful weapon to create narratives, change perceptions, capture the critical moments in the social justice movement, and change the world.