Photographers of Influence

Gordon Parks was a photographer who used his pictures as a means of photojournalism and activism.  He documented African-Americans and injustice as pertaining to the civil rights movement and poverty.  Parks worked at the Farm Security Administration (FSA) through a photography fellowship, and used his time there to document a woman named Ella Watson, the subject of his “American Gothic”.  His photographic essay on a Harlem gang leader in 1948 led to a job as a photographer and writer for Life Magazine.  While at Life, (he worked there for over twenty years), Parks documented poverty and racial segregation, and took portraits of some notable figures, including Malcolm X, Kwame Ture, Muhammad Ali, and Barbara Streisand.  In 1960, Parks was named photographer of the year by the American Society of Magazine Photographers.  In addition to photography, Parks directed films, composed music, wrote books, and even made some paintings.  Some of the films he directed included, “Shaft”(1971), “Shaft’s Big Score”(1972), “The Super Cops”(1974), and “Leadbelly”(1976).  Parks also did a cameo in the Shaft sequel in 2000.  Over his lifetime, Parks wrote 15 books and became a prominent black filmmaker in Hollywood.  He also co-founded Essence Magazine and became its editorial director during it’s first few years of operation. 

There isn’t much information about the man behind the infamous Emmett Till photos except that he was a photographer for Jet Magazine.  In 1955, when the fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was brutally beaten, shot, and drowned in the Tallahatchie River for whistling at a white woman, David Jackson was there to photograph the funeral.  People all over the world were surprised at the blatant displays of racism in America, and many Americans were forced to confront the harsh realities of their prejudice - prejudice that would lead to the deaths of many black Americans.  After viewing Till’s mutilated body, people all over the world recieved a wakeup call about the realities of racism in this country.  However, Jackson also took many other notable photos, including portraits of Harry Belafonte and his wife, Marguerite, and other famous people.  Jackson’s photography helped to aid in the progression of the civil rights movement, and educated those who were unfamiliar with America’s racist policies and actions about their existence.  Jackson’s work helped to shine a light on racial injustices and aided in the passage of civil rights acts and legislature.