Image of A woman and her dog in the Harlem section

A woman and her dog in the Harlem section by Gordon Parks

Happy Black History Month! We're taking this opportunity to celebrate and highlight iconic photographer Gordon Parks, who was a master at using his camera not just to witness, but to uplift. Parks’s work highlights vitality, resilience, and cultural pride while balancing social realism with aesthetic elegance. Each of his photographs feels like a short film (he was a director as well as a producer, photographer, musician, and writer/novelist, so it makes sense).

Parks is best known for his documentary photojournalism. From the 1940s to the 1970s, he examined civil rights, poverty, and the everyday lives of African Americans. Besides breaking major racial barriers as the first Black photographer at LIFE and Vogue, he was one of the first African Americans to produce and direct a major Hollywood film, Shaft.

Parks, born in 1912, grew up in poverty in Kansas under segregation. Inspired by photographs of migrant workers, he bought a camera from a pawnshop and taught himself photography. The Farm Security Administration recognized his talent and brought Parks on. Through his work with the FSA, he honed his singularly powerful visual language and aesthetic style that exposed the social and economic effects of racism.

Through his work, Parks not only recorded history—he helped shape a more nuanced, empathetic, inclusive view of American life, one frame at a time.

To read even more about Parks, check out this fantastic essay by historian and professor John Edwin Mason!

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Celebrate with Gordon Parks 💗