Above: Ghetto Boy, Chicago, Illinois, 1953. The Gordon Parks Foundation.
Early Career
Gordon Parks was born in 1912 to a large, impoverished family, and began supporting himself at the age of sixteen by working a variety of jobs. It was only in 1938 that he began exploring photography by shooting fashions in St. Paul, and later in Chicago. While in Chicago, Parks also used the medium as a way to express the extreme poverty and oppression African Americans encountered in the city’s South Side.
"At first I wasn't sure that I had the talent, but I did know I had a fear of failure, and that fear compelled me to fight off anything that might abet it." |
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Harlem Gang Leader
Parks continued to work at the FSA for two more years until the program disbanded. Having always aspired to work for Life Magazine, Parks met its picture editor, Wilson Hicks, in 1948. Life was one of the nation’s most influential news magazines and sold millions of copies each week.
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When given the chance to make a trial story, Parks created an article about Harlem gang leader Red Jackson. During this assignment, he befriended Jackson’s gang while exploring the causes of the violence, poverty and crime that were a constant presence in their lives. |
Letters to the Editor:
Life Magazine, November 22, 1948 The photo essay was successful, and shortly after it was published, Life hired Gordon Parks as their first African American staff photographer. |