Gordon Parks was born in Fort Scott, Kansas, in 1912 and grew up amid poverty and segregation. After seeing documentary photographs of migrant workers, he bought a secondhand camera and taught himself to use it. A Julius Rosenwald Fellowship in 1942 led to work with the Farm Security Administration and later the Office of War Information.
In 1948, Parks became the first African American photographer hired by Life. The Smithsonian records his contributions to the magazine through 1972. His subjects included civil rights, public figures, fashion and entertainment, so his career ran between social reporting and commercial magazine work.
In Ali Jumping Rope, made in 1966, Muhammad Ali trains in a Miami gym. A mirror shows the athlete from two angles, while a bright window cuts through the darker interior.
Parks also worked in fiction, music and film. In 1969, he wrote and directed The Learning Tree, adapted from his semiautobiographical novel, becoming the first African American to direct a major Hollywood studio feature, though independent Black directors had worked earlier. He followed it with Shaft in 1971. In 1989, he produced, directed and composed music for Martin, a ballet dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr.
A 1961 Life essay about poverty in Brazil centered on Flávio da Silva, a boy living with his family in a Rio de Janeiro favela. American readers responded with donations.
Parks died in 2006. His work is held in several archives, including his foundation, the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, where later audiences can study photographs alongside the other parts of his creative practice.
