Gordon Parks

Gordon Parks (November 30, 1912-March 7, 2006) was born in Kansas in 1912 and moved to St. Paul as a teenager. During the Depression, he bought his first camera at a pawnshop after seeing Farm Security Administration photos in a magazine. Soon his photos were on display in the Eastman Kodak shop in Minneapolis. He went on to become the first black staff photographer for Life Magazine and is considered of the most important photographers of the 20^th century. His images helped shape the nation’s discussion around inequality and civil rights, and he was also a composer, filmmaker, and author.

Parks produced fifteen books in his lifetime. He began writing books on photography in the 1940s and later began writing fiction in the 1960s. He turned his semi-autobiographical novel, The Learning Tree, into a movie in 1969, which opened the door to Parks directing more movies. Parks has also written other novels, several books of poetry, and memoirs.