Gordon Parks' Segregation Story: Capturing Black Dignity in Postwar Alabama
The groundbreaking photographer Gordon Parks, whose career spanned over five decades, created a profound body of work that established him as one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. A new exhibition titled Gordon Parks: The South in Colour at Jackson Fine Art in Atlanta, Georgia, presents his powerful documentation of Black family life in postwar Alabama, highlighting the dignity and resilience displayed under discriminatory Jim Crow laws.
Documenting Social Justice Through Photography
Beginning in the 1940s, Parks focused his lens on American life and culture with an emphasis on social justice, race relations, the civil rights movement, and the African American experience. The exhibition commemorates two significant milestones: the 70th anniversary of the publication of Parks' landmark images of the segregated U.S. South in Life magazine and the 20th anniversary of the founding of The Gordon Parks Foundation.
Featuring more than thirty photographs from his Segregation Story series, the show debuts a brand-new portfolio published by the foundation. It places many previously unshown works alongside his most recognized images to deepen their emotional and historical resonance.
The Impact of Jim Crow Laws
The Jim Crow laws, established in southern states, enforced racial segregation in public amenities such as schools, public transport, restaurants, recreational facilities, and even drinking fountains. One poignant image from the exhibition, Untitled, At Segregated Drinking Fountain, Mobile, Alabama, 1956, captures the prevalence of such prejudice while also revealing a scene of compassion. In it, a gentleman assists a young girl in reaching the fountain for a refreshing drink.
Parks employed a handheld, twin-lens Rolleiflex camera to photograph the daily lives of the Thornton family and their extended relatives, including the Causey and Tanner families. His choice of camera and decision to shoot in color resulted in carefully composed, lush, square-format images that are now on display.
Curatorial Insights and Artistic Choices
Photographer Dawoud Bey, the exhibition's curator, notes that Parks' selections of tool, material, and sensibility lend the Black southern presence, often under siege, a sense of lives fully and expressively lived. This perspective underscores the exhibition's focus on capturing the humanity and vibrancy of Black communities despite systemic oppression.
From Humble Beginnings to Iconic Career
Born into poverty and segregation in Fort Scott, Kansas, Parks was drawn to photography as a young man. Despite lacking professional training, he won a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship in 1942, leading to positions with the photography section of the Farm Security Administration in Washington D.C. and later the Office of War Information.
By the mid-1940s, Parks worked as a freelance photographer for publications like Vogue, Glamour, and Ebony. In 1948, he was hired as a staff photographer for Life magazine, where over two decades he produced some of his most notable work. His career expanded beyond photography; in 1969, he wrote and directed the major feature film The Learning Tree, based on his semi-autobiographical novel, followed by 1971's Shaft, which helped define the Blaxploitation genre. Parks continued photographing, publishing, and composing until his death in 2006.
Personal Struggles and Resilience
Parks faced significant personal challenges early in life. At age eleven, three white boys threw him into the Marmaton River, believing he couldn't swim. He had the presence of mind to duck underwater so they wouldn't see him make it to land. His mother died when he was fourteen, and he spent his last night at the family home sleeping beside her coffin, seeking solace and confronting his fear of death.
He attended a segregated elementary school, and while his high school had both Black and white students due to the town's small size, Black students were barred from sports, school social activities, and discouraged from pursuing higher education. In a documentary on his life, Parks recalled his teacher telling him that his desire to go to college would be a waste of money.
The exhibition Gordon Parks: The South in Colour runs until June 13, offering a poignant look at a critical period in American history through the eyes of a master photographer.
