Gordon Parks' chronicles of everyday segregation

"I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs. I knew at that point I had to have a camera." Gordon Parks (1912-2006)

Throughout his over six decade-long career, Parks used his camera to give a voice to those who didn't have one and to address inequities, documenting social injustice and all forms of discrimination.

These images are from the Segregation in the South series that he shot in 1956 for a Life Magazine assignment on race relations in Alabama. The reason I picked them is that I wanted to remind myself of what was 'normal' back in those days, of what millions of people had to endure day in, day out. Separation, inequality, exclusion, poverty, oppression, humiliation. That was the status quo until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 officially put an end to racial segregation.

At a time that was marked by violence, brutality and social unrest, in this series Parks offers us a portrait of everyday life of the Black community that is dignified and intimate. His striking use of colour photography acts as a very necessary and timely reminder that segregation is part of America's recent history. His compelling and groundbreaking work merged the harrowing honesty of photojournalism with a distinctively empathic visual language that continues to ask questions and inspire.

I know Zoom fatigue is real, but I would strongly encourage you to watch the recording of the excellent live Q&A with Nicole Fleetwood, Khalil Gibran Muhammad and MoMA curator Sarah Meister as part of the museum's Virtual Views programme.

#gordonparks #photography #blackculture #blackamerica #gordonparksfoundation #freedom #socialjustice #blackartists #blackartmatters #moma #artblog #artblogger #beyondthecanvasblog

Department Store, Mobile, Alabama, 1956

Airline Terminal, Atlanta, Georgia, 1956

Ondria Tanner and Her Grandmother Window-Shopping, Mobile, Alabama, 1956

At Segregated Drinking Fountain, Mobile, Alabama, 1956

Outside Looking In, Mobile, Alabama, 1956

Untitled, Shady Grove, Alabama, 1956

All images courtesy of the Gordon Parks Foundation.

In Memoriam: Rep. John Lewis (1940-2020)

"When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something" - John Lewis.

The son of Alabama cotton croppers, Democratic congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis was the last surviving member of the Big Six who organised the 1963 March on Washington where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his I Have a Dream speech.

On March 7, 1965, Lewis led the 54-mile march from Selma to Montgomery in his home state of Alabama demanding voting rights for Black people. After crossing Edmund Pettus Bridge, the demonstrators were stopped by armed police and brutally attacked with bats, whips and tear gas after they refused to turn back. On Bloody Sunday Lewis suffered a broken skull, and other 58 people had to be treated for injuries. A petition has now been started to rename the bridge after him. That same year, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which finally granted African Americans their constitutional right to vote.

www.johnlewisgoodtrouble.com/

#johnlewis #socialactivism #racialequality #civilrights #blackhistory

John Lewis with fellow protestors at Edmund Pettus Bridge, Selma (1965)

© Alabama Department of Archives and History. Photo by Tom Lankford, Birmingham News.

John Lewis is beaten by a state trooper in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965.

AP Photo

Rep. John Lewis stands on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on Feb. 14, 2015.

Photo Bill Clark / CQ Roll Call via AP

Expanding the Canon: the Portraiture of Barkley L. Hendricks

Barkley L. Hendricks mostly painted portraits, a genre that flourished during the Renaissance becoming the symbol of the sitter's prestige, wealth and power. The representation of power was however never central to Hendricks' work and he also vehemently rejected the label of political artist: "Anything a black person does in terms of the figure is put into a political category. My paintings were about people that were part of my life.”

His iconic masterpiece Lawdy Mama intrigues me for its sumptuous visual celebration of the ordinary. Hendricks painted his cousin Kathy in her everyday clothes as she engagingly looks straight back at the viewer. Her afro hairdo frames her features like a giant halo, its round shape echoed by the curved top of the canvas like in the lunette of a Byzantine religious icon. By setting the woman's figure against a gold leaf background, Hendrick juxtaposes the mundane and the sacred. There is a sublime timelessness to this painting, a universality that blends the classical with the contemporary.

If we really wanted to look for a political gesture, then perhaps this lies in the 'elevation' of the ordinary people like Kathy, whom Hendricks depicted like deities. And because he only ever painted portraits of the people around him, by giving black people a prominence on canvas they had not known before, he also succeeded in finding them a place in the art historical canon.

#barkleyhendricks #blackart #portrait #artblog #artblogger #beyondthecanvasblog

Barkley L. Hendricks (1945-2017)

Lawdy Mama, 1969

Studio Museum in Harlem, New York

© Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks