10 Insights into Gordon Parks

Gordon Parks, a self-taught Renaissance man, left an indelible mark on a wide range of art forms in mid-20th century America. Rising from poverty and segregation, Parks became one of the foremost documentarians of daily life, with a powerful influence stretching from the 1940s to the 1970s.

In addition to his prolific output as a writer, composer, painter, and filmmaker, Parks made history in 1969 as the first Black director to helm a major Hollywood film with The Learning Tree. This landmark work was included in 1989 as one of the first 25 films preserved by the Library of Congress. Parks is perhaps most famous for his iconic photographs, including American Gothic, Washington DC, and for shaping the Blaxsploitation genre through his adaptation of Ernest Tidyman’s Shaft. Here are 10 facts about this extraordinary visionary.

1. He was the youngest of 15 siblings.

Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks was born on November 30, 1912, to Andrew Jackson Parks and Sarah Ross in Fort Scott, Kansas. As the youngest of 15 siblings, he spent his early years on the family farm where they grew corn, beets, collard greens, turnips, and potatoes. At the age of 7, his mother bought a piano through an installment plan, which sparked Parks' interest in learning music.

2. He was subjected to a hate crime during his youth.

After his mother passed away in 1928, Parks moved to Minnesota to live with his sister Peggy and her husband. However, on Christmas Eve that same year, Peggy’s husband threw the 16-year-old Parks out into freezing temperatures. Parks later stated that this moment was when he realized he had to rely solely on himself for survival.

Parks compared this family conflict to another harrowing childhood experience: a literal sink-or-swim moment when he was 11. Three white boys, who likely doubted his ability to swim, threw him into the Marmaton River, shouting, “Swim, Black boy, or die!” Parks managed to survive only by keeping his head submerged long enough for them to lose interest and leave.

3. He purchased his first camera for just $7.50 at a pawn shop.

In 1937, while working as a waiter on a train route from Chicago to Seattle, Parks was handed a magazine by a fellow waiter. The magazine featured images of Dust Bowl migrants, showing Parks how profoundly photography could capture the injustices he had long experienced. Inspired, he bought a Voigtländer Brilliant camera for $7.50 (roughly $115 today), which he later described as a “weapon against poverty and racism,” and taught himself to use it.

4. The first time he attempted to take a photograph, he fell into Puget Sound.

“I was trying to capture seagulls,” Parks told The Smithsonian Institution about his early photography mishap, which ended with him taking an unexpected plunge into the water. “I managed to save some of the pictures I had taken earlier that day, and fortunately, the exposures were only slightly affected by the water.”

5. He received significant encouragement from Marva Louis.

Parks had been taking fashion photographs for department stores in the St. Paul, Minnesota, area when he caught the attention of Marva Louis, a model, singer, and the first wife of the legendary boxer Joe Louis. Marva recognized his talent and suggested he consider moving to Chicago, where he would have a larger platform to showcase his work.

Following her guidance, Parks relocated to Chicago. There, he began taking portraits of Marva and other prominent women, which provided another significant boost to his career.

6. He photographed The Tuskegee Airmen.

In the following years, while continuing to earn a living through fashion photography, Parks began taking on freelance assignments, capturing the world around him. His photos documenting life on the South Side of Chicago earned him a fellowship with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Farm Security Administration (FSA), a government body dedicated to fighting rural poverty, which brought him to Washington, D.C.

Although the FSA was dissolved in 1946, Parks chose to stay in Washington, D.C., and became the first Black photographer for the Office of War Information. One of his initial assignments was to photograph the training and deployment of the Tuskegee Airmen of the 332nd Fighter Group. Parks was ready to join them in Europe, even though his wife Sally was expecting their third child, but a group of southern U.S. Senators allegedly intervened. When the time came for him to depart, Parks was informed that his paperwork wasn’t in order, forcing him to stay in the U.S.

7. He secretly published his most iconic photograph.

While it's hard to definitively say which of Parks's photographs holds the title of his most famous, American Gothic, Washington DC would certainly be a strong contender. The image shows cleaner Ella Watson standing in front of an American flag at a Farm Security Administration office, holding the mop and broom she used to clean the building. Parks’s supervisor, Roy Stryker, recognized the photograph's powerful impact, but warned that it couldn't be published. “You’ve got the right idea,” Stryker said, “but you’re going to get us all fired!”

According to Parks, he “sneaked it out and published it in an old [newspaper] that used to be in Brooklyn.”

8. He reshaped the public's perception of crime in the United States.

LIFE published Parks’s 1957 photo essay, “The Atmosphere of Crime,” in which he documented crime in cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, alongside writer Henry Suydam. The photographs were striking because they challenged the conventional portrayal of criminals, choosing empathy over sensationalism, and revealing the pervasive brutality and ordinariness of the criminal justice system by focusing on its structures rather than individual offenders. Unlike the typical mugshots and police raid images in tabloids, Parks respected the anonymity of those behind bars.

9. He dedicated his 30th doctorate to a former school administrator who claimed Black children shouldn't bother with education.

Ms. McClintock, who was Parks's school advisor, worked at a desegregated high school that was severely unequal, where Black students were prohibited from playing sports or engaging in social activities. She, along with others, discouraged Black students from attending college, telling them it would only waste their parents' money. In 1993, while speaking at Skidmore College, Parks honored McClintock by dedicating his 30th doctorate to her.

10. He made a cameo appearance playing chess in the 2000 reboot of Shaft.

After years of consulting for Hollywood studios and directing his debut film, The Learning Tree in 1969, Parks went on to direct Shaft, the iconic Blaxploitation detective movie starring Richard Roundtree as the tough, fearless Shaft. In the original 1971 film, Parks made a cameo as a landlord, and when Paramount rebooted the franchise in 2000 with Samuel L. Jackson as John Shaft, Parks was honored with another cameo. Credited as a Lenox Lounge Patron, he appears playing chess when Shaft greets him with a friendly “Mr. P.”