Gordon Parks
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Name: Gordon Parks
Birth Date: November 30, 1912
Place of Birth: Fort Scott, Kansas, United States of America
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: African American
Gender: Male
Occupations: photographer, composer, filmmaker, writer
Awards
Julius Rosenwald Award for photography, 1942; Syracuse University School of
Journalism Award, 1961; Frederic W. Brehm Award, 1962; Newhouse Citation,
Syracuse University, 1963; Philadelphia Museum of Art Award, 1964; New York Art
Directors Club Award, 1964, 1968; Carr Van Anda Journalism Award, University of
Miami, 1964; NCCJ Award, 1964; Notable Book Award, American Literary
Association, 1966; Emmy Award for Diary of A Harlem Family, 1968; Carr Van
Anda Journalism Award, Ohio University, 1970; National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Spingarn Medal, 1972; Library of
Congress National Film Registry Classics for The Learning Tree, 1982; President?s
Fellow, Rhode Island School of Design, 1984; American Society Magazine Award,
1985; National Medal of the Arts, 1988; National Association of Black Journalists,
Journalism Hall of Fame, 1990; Photographic Society of America, Progress Medal,
1992.
Multi−faceted photojournalist, Gordon Parks (born 1912), documented many of the
greatest images of the 20th century. He expanded his artistic pursuits from visual
images to literature with his first novel, The Learning Tree, which he then adapted into
an award−winning motion picture. Over the years, his works have included musical
composition, orchestration, and poetry. The limit of Parks talent remains to be
discovered as he evolves with characteristic grace into the era of digital photography.
Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks was born in Fort Scott, Kansas on
November 30, 1912. He was the youngest of 15 siblings, the children of Andrew and
Sarah (Ross) Jackson Parks. The rumor survives, more than eight decades later, that Parks was born dead. In what must have seemed a miracle, the attending physician was able to revive the infant. The physician, Dr. Gordon, acquired a namesake in the process. The Parks family members were victims of extreme poverty. Andrew Parks was a dirt farmer whose wife passed away when Gordon was only 15. Following the death of
Sarah Parks, members of the Parks family dispersed, and Gordon went to St. Paul,
Minnesota to stay with an older sister. In St. Paul he attended Central High and Mechanical Arts High School, but the hardships of adult life set in before he received a diploma. Parks had failed to establish a congenial relationship with his
brother−in−law. Thus, life became difficult. The relationship grew increasingly
strained until Parks abruptly left his sisters household. Still in high school and jobless,
he carried few belongings with him into the frigid Minnesota winter. He survived by
taking odd jobs and tried to finish his education, but soon dropped out and drifted in
search of work.
Even as a very young child, Parks sensed his own gift of music. As a youngster, he
played an old Kimball piano whenever he could find the time. He was, in fact, able to
pick and play most instruments that crossed his path. That innate sense of music
enabled Parks to secure work as a piano player, albeit in the setting of a brothel. In
time Parks joined the Larry Funk Orchestra and went on tour until the band dissolved
in New York, at which point he found himself in Harlem and jobless once again. Parks
joined the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933 and used that employment to return to
Minnesota, where he married Sally Alvis. In 1935 Parks went to work for the railroad.
Parks was a porter on the Northern Pacific Railroad in the late 1930s when he
purchased a 35mm camera, a Voightlander Brilliant, from a pawn shop in Seattle. He
carried the $10 camera to Puget Sound and shot some pictures of seagulls. Those first
pictures were impressive, and they were on display at the developers shop within
weeks. Soon Parks secured a professional “shoot” for a womans apparel store in St.
Paul. Eventually his work was seen by Marva Louis, wife of prize−fighter Joe Louis.
In 1941, she convinced Parks to move to Chicago, where she used her influence to
procure photography assignments for him. In his spare time, Parks photographed the
urban ghettos, and again his work was impressive. Within the year, Parks received a
fellowship from the Julius Rosenwald Foundation to study photography. He used the
opportunity to apprentice with Roy Stryker at the Farm Services Administration (FSA)
in Washington, D.C., beginning in January 1942. Parks documented images of the
Great Depression. His first FSA picture, taken in 1942, was called “Washington, D.C.
Government Charwoman.” The classic photograph depicted