Gordon Parks: Views of a segregated South
Acclaimed photographer Gordon Parks was LIFE magazine's first black photographer; his work became legendary.
In 1956, Gordon traveled to Alabama for LIFE to document the segregated South with writer Robert Wallace. Later that year in September, LIFE published 26 of Parks' photos in the story titled,"The Restraints: Open and Hidden."
Throughout his career Parks pursued social justice with his camera. His "quiet" images of daily life in Alabama, as published in "The Restraints," brought the reality of segregation to the public's consciousness in a profound way.
The rest of the images from that assignment were thought to have been lost. But a few years ago, in 2012 (six years after Parks died), archivists at the Gordon Parks Foundation stumbled upon more than 200 color slides in a box labeled "Segregation Series."
Gordon Parks
Mr. and Mrs. Albert Thornton, Mobile, Alabama, 1956.
From LIFE: "Mr and Mrs. Albert Thornton, married in 1906, sit beneath a picture made shortly after their marriage by splicing two earlier photographs made in 1903. The old picture shows them at 29 and 17; now they are 82 and 70."
Parks documented the lives of an extended African-American family in Alabama for the story. The images seen here, along with others, are now on exhibit at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, as well as the Foundation's new headquarters in Pleasantville, New York.
Gordon Parks
Untitled, Nashville, Tennessee, 1956.
From LIFE: "At a bus station. Professor Thornton comes face-to-face with segregation, which he accepts passively but with hurt pride. On long trips he sometimes dodges the problem by taking a more expensive but un-segregated plane. His salary as a professor is $6,600 a year and he could live quite comfortably were it not for his determination to put his own three children through college. Because their ages are such that they can go through one at a time, he thinks he can do it."
Gordon Parks
Airline Terminal, Atlanta, Georgia, 1956.
Little is known about the circumstances of this photo. Gordon's notes describe the woman as a "nursemaid for the white woman's baby." The photo stands as a document of race relations in the South in the 1950s.
Gordon Parks
Untitled, Mobile, Alabama, 1956.
Parks: "I don't have time just to make pretty pictures. I would think the stories that I did that touched people, touched people and helped lives, those are the ones that I'd most wanted to be remembered by."
Gordon Parks
Ondria Tanner and Her Grandmother Window-shopping, Mobile, Alabama, 1956.
The two are looking into a white clothing store. The photo subtly alludes to a life the two don't have.
Gordon Parks
Untitled, Mobile, Alabama, 1956.
The photo shows a mailman wearing a pith helmet reading the mail to an illiterate couple.
At that time one had to be able to demonstrate the ability to read the Bill of Rights before being allowed to register to vote.
Gordon Parks
Department Store, Mobile, Alabama, 1956.
The photo of the poised young woman and little girl was taken outside the Saenger Theatre in Mobile. Though it wasn't published by LIFE, it was one of Gordon's most iconic civil rights images. Joanne Wilson, the woman in the photo, became a high school government and economics teacher.
Gordon Parks
Store Front, Mobile, Alabama, 1956.
From LIFE: "Combination grocery and beauty parlor is the recreation center for the Tanner children."
The LIFE story described the Tanners' house as a "two-room shack for all six members of the family. They had few housing choices in the segregated neighborhood they lived in."
Gordon Parks
Outside Looking In, Mobile, Alabama, 1956.
The young girls can be seen looking at white families using the playground.
Gordon Parks
Untitled, Shady Grove, Alabama, 1956.
The photo shows a segregated Dairy Queen. The Jim Crow South kept the races apart.
Gordon Parks
Willie Causey, Mobile, Alabama, 1956.
From LIFE: "Willie Causey, who is a farmer as well as woodcutter, plows his field behind a Norman mule."
Causey did well as a businessman, owning his own equipment, and successfully competing with white men in the same line of work. LIFE's article described it as a "restrained competition" though, because surpassing his white competitors in business posed risks.
There were major repercussions for the Causey family after the LIFE story was published. Many white people in the area were particularly upset by Mrs. Causey's comments about integration being the only way to have justice. Willie Causey's truck was confiscated and Allie Lee Causey was suspended from teaching until she would disavow the article and her quotes.
Seventeen days after the story appeared, the Causeys were forced to leave Silas for Mobile, and eventually the state. Despite everything, Allie Causey still said, "I told the truth in the magazine. Justice and integration, that's what I want." The magazine helped the Causeys resettle elsewhere in the South.
Gordon Parks
Untitled, Shady Grove, Alabama, 1956.
From LIFE: "Young Causeys, Jeff (left) and S.L., go fishing in Turkey Creek. Even though their stepmother is a schoolteacher, they almost never read and their general knowledge is as low as that of other children in the community. They do not play baseball, have never even heard of the Dodgers or the Yankees."
LIFE magazine did a follow-up story on what happened to the Causey family after publication of the initial article. The two articles may still be viewed online today.
The LIFE issue of Sept. 24, 1956, containing "The Restraints: Open and Hidden," is available to view on Google Books. The second story about the backlash the Causey's experienced, titled "Sequel to Segregation," was published in LIFE on Dec. 10, 1956.
Gordon Parks
In-Home Barbershop, Shady Grove, Alabama, 1956.
From LIFE: "In home barbershop, Thornton is shaved by adopted son Aaron. Grandaughter (foreground) tore hair from Negro doll 'to see how it would look.'"
Gordon Parks
Untitled, Mobile, Alabama, 1956.
Gordon Parks
Black Classroom, Shady Grove, Alabama, 1956.
The scene looks like something out of the 1800s rather than the 1950s.
Gordon Parks
Children at Play, Mobile, Alabama, 1956.
Gordon Parks
Untitled, Shady Grove, Alabama, 1956.
Gordon Parks
Untitled, Shady Grove, Alabama, 1956.
Gordon Parks
Willie Causey and Family, Shady Grove, Alabama, 1956,
Many photography critics have written that Gordon's use of color rather than black and white for this work made the problem of segregation less remote... less in the past. At the time, black and white film was the norm much more so than color.
Gordon Parks
Untitled, Mobile, Alabama, 1956.
Gordon Parks
Gordon Parks steps out from behind the camera to pose for this 1979 photo taken near Manhattan, Kansas. The youngest of 15 children, Parks was born into poverty in 1912 in the segregated town of Fort Scott, Kansas. The high-school dropout bought his first camera for $7.50 at a pawnshop in the late 1930s.
Gordon Parks
Photographer Gordon Parks contemplates his lengthy career at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida, in 1999.
Parks died on March 7, 2006 in New York City at the age of 93. He was known not just for his compelling photography, but also as a writer and director. His film credits included "Shaft."
The exhibition "Gordon Parks: Segregation Story" is on view at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta through June 21, 2015.
For more information about the Gordon Parks Foundation visit gordonparksfoundation.org.