Gordon Parks was a man of many talents. Through his life he collected the titles of photographer, writer, musician and filmmaker. Warford said Parks was not fond of his childhood hometown for quite sometime but decided to visit it later in life to take photos of his classmates.
Jill Warford, director of the Gordon Parks Museum at Fort Scott Community College, wove the tale of Parks’ life for an Iola audience at the Funston Meeting Hall Tuesday night.
A native of Fort Scott, Parks was the youngest of 15 children, born in 1912. A gypsy woman foretold his mother of Gordon’s special gifts, though his mother never lived long enough to witness his fame.
From his very beginning, Parks was special.
“Born dead,” the doctor set the infant Parks aside. Fortunately, a young doctor assisting wanted to try to revive the infant and plunged him in a bucket of ice water. The shock brought Parks to life. Gordon was named after the young doctor.
Parks’ mother died when he was 16 and he went to Minneapolis to live with his sister but was turned out by her husband. From then on he was on his own.
Parks found he had an eye for things that most didn’t see and captured them on film.
He bought a camera for $7.50 and started taking photos, primarily of people. His big break came when he took fashion photos for a department store in St. Paul, Minn.
He received a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship and chose to work for the Farm Security Administration in Washington, D.C.
He began doing freelance photography in Harlem in 1944 and did lots of work for fashion magazines. In 1948 he was hired as the first black photographer on staff at Life magazine. He worked there until 1972.
Parks documented poverty, civil rights and everyday life.
He traveled all over the United States to find 11 of his black classmates to see how their lives were. These photos have been hunted down and will be displayed in an upcoming exhibit in Boston.
Warford said Parks visited the museum in 2004 and he decided three months prior to his death in March 2006 that he would be buried in Fort Scott.
Over his lifetime Parks received 50 honorary doctorates, numerous awards and a NAACP Spingarn Medal.
The museum’s Choice of Weapons award honors those who have excelled in the arts. The museum does lots of educational tours with area students. It is located on the FSCC campus.
Gordon Parks a Kansas treasure
