Segregation, Poverty and the American Way
Emma Broomfield, The Sunday Times Magazine
March 2020
More than a century ago the pioneering American photographer and film director Gordon Parks was born into poverty and segregation in Fort Scott, Kansas. The youngest of 15, he had to fend for himself on the streets as a teenager, ultimately finding solace in photography. He dedicated his career to raising awareness of social injustice and the struggle for civil rights — finding fame as the director of the 1971 blaxploitation movie Shaft. But it was as a photographer that he first made his mark. “I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of wrongs,” he said. […]