Gordon Parks

One morning, with shaving razor in hand, I had stared into the mirror and asked myself some rather bothersome questions. With hard eyes I stared back at myself and reeled off some disturbing facts, along with some advice: “You’re approaching manhood and you dislike yourself. That’s why you’re interrogating me. “Well, make up your mind and do something about it.” You’re so thin-skinned that the softest criticism rubs you raw. “Accept criticism, man. It can’t hurt, and it could be helpful.” Envy of others’ success hands around your neck like a rope. “That’s stupid. Use their success to give you inspiration.” You squander too much time on trivial things, always hurrying to nowhere, and in a rush to get there. “Take your time, man. Think things out first, then go.” You avoid questions about yourself that you find hard to answer. “Figure things out. You just don’t have the right answers, so admit it.” You talk rapid-fire just to be heard, and without having anything worthwhile to say. “That’s downright ego. Listen more. Keep your big mouth shut and keep your ears open. Your insecurity’s showing.” Well, enough for now. There’s plenty left on the list for tomorrow. “One last thing: Until you’re sure of yourself, you won’t be sure of anything. Think it over. See you tomorrow morning.” Many more sessions with the mirror gave Parks a sense of sanity in an insane world where he bore the cruelty of racism, poverty and despair. These conversations kept him alive and driven to eventually pursue photography and many other endeavors.

Parks was born the youngest of 15 children in Fort Scott, Kansas. As a young boy he had problems with the white people in town and the segregated schools, but he was comforted with the knowledge of his parents’ love and unity of the black community. When he was just a teenager, his mother died suddenly and Parks was devastated. To add to the sorrow, Parks’ father told him to move to St. Paul, Minnesota to live with his sister and her family. Shortly after his arrival he and his brother-in-law had an argument and Parks was told to leave. He was now thrust out into a world he knew very little about, had very little money and it was Minnesota in winter.

To keep from freezing Parks rode the trolley between St. Paul and Minneapolis at night for nearly two weeks. After two weeks, the money was gone and Parks had not eaten in days. He was so hungry that when he saw a hurt pigeon, Parks built a small fire and ate the pigeon to keep from starving. Finally, Parks found a job as a dishwasher during the day. At night he utilized his natural music ability to play piano to play in a brothel. Over a period of many years Parks had various, similar jobs. At one point he held a job as a busboy in a high-class restaurant that had a live band. One night Parks was playing the piano after hours and the bandleader heard him. Eventually, Parks began to travel with the band, but that ended quickly as the bandleader skipped out with the money. Parks struggled with his fierce emotions, as fate would build him up, then take him down. After working for the band, Parks was left jobless again. And again, he could only find work for meager wages, cleaning the filth of bums and streetwalkers. Falling in love with Sally Alvis and voices in the mirror kept Parks from crumbling under the circumstances.

As fate would have it, Parks was due for something good to happen and he found work as a waiter for the North Coast Limited, a transcontinental train. He married Sally and began a family. The work also brought a new vision for Parks. Some of the magazines the passengers left behind contained photographs by Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Russell Lee, Walker Evens and others, which inspired Parks to become a photographer. Still suffering the cruelties of my past, I wanted a voice to help me escape it. In 1938 a camera I bought for $7.50 would become that voice.

I bought that Voightlander Brilliant at a Seattle pawnshop; it wasn’t much of a camera, but for only $7.50, I had purchased a weapon I hoped to use against a warped past and an uncertain future. Parks began taking photographs and landed his first job shooting fashion for Madeline Murphy. His talent was almost immediately recognized by Eastman Kodak, which sponsored Parks’ first exhibitions. His success led him to Chicago where he continued with fashion photography, but also began focusing his camera on the poverty stricken black community on Chicago’s south side. This portfolio won him the Julius Rosenwald Fellowship. He was the first photographer to receive the fellowship, which led to Roy Stryker and Parks began work for the Farm Security Administration in Washington, D.C. He was the first African-American photographer to work for the FSA. As a self-taught photographer who learned by looking at the great photographers of the day and visiting museums to study art by the masters, Parks was now on his way. He had a natural talent, and although many times he was still hit hard with cold reality of bigotry and forced to enter through the back door or sit at the back of the bus, Parks had won the respect of Stryker, printers and fellow photographers, which mattered most. One of the most recognized photographs by Parks in his early years with the FSA is the image of Ella Watson who Parks posed with the U.S. Flag as a backdrop, while holding a mop and a broom.