Celebrating Gordon Parks, a Pioneering Photographer of Black American Life
Elodie Saint-Louis, AnOther Magazine
March 2024
In 1942, the great photographer Gordon Parks arrived in Washington, DC. He had been hired by the Farm Security Administration on the strength of his photographs documenting Chicago’s African American residents. Parks arrived at the nation’s capital – in his own words, a “radiant, historic place” – but was quickly greeted by racism that ran “rampant”.
Angered, shocked, and humiliated, Parks returned to the offices of the FSA, where he met Ella Watson, a Black woman who worked there as a cleaner. After speaking with Watson, Parks asked if he could photograph her. The resulting image, American Gothic, would become one of his best-known photographs, an ironic, searing take on the iconic Grant Wood painting of the same name. For the more than fifty years Parks photographed, he would continue to channel his frustration, rage, and love of his people, wielding his camera to create images that are now essential records of American history and life. […]