Gordon Parks
Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks (November 30, 1912 – March 7, 2006) was a groundbreaking American photographer, musician, poet, novelist, journalist, activist and film director. He is best remembered for his photo essays for Life magazine and as the director of the 1971 film Shaft. At the age of 25, Parks was struck by photographs of migrant workers in a magazine and bought his first camera, a Voigtländer Brillant, for $12.50 at a pawnshop. The photo clerks who developed Parks' first roll of film, applauded his work and prompted him to get a fashion assignment at Frank Murphy's women's clothing store in St. Paul, Minnesota. Those photos caught the eye of Marva Louis, the elegant wife of the heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis. She encouraged Parks to move to Chicago in 1940, where he began a portrait business for society women. Over the next few years, Parks moved from job to job, developing a freelance portrait and fashion photographer sideline. He began to chronicle the city's South Side black ghetto and in 1941, an exhibition of those photographs won Parks a photography fellowship with the Farm Security Administration(FSA).
Director
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Solomon Northup's Odyssey
To be a free man and a man with a trade, was a lot to be proud of for a Black man in 19th Century America. Solomon Northup was such a man. Then, one fateful day, his good life and all his dreams came to a crashing halt. Solomon Northup was kidnapped and carried off into...Watch Movie
Music
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Solomon Northup's Odyssey
To be a free man and a man with a trade, was a lot to be proud of for a Black man in 19th Century America. Solomon Northup was such a man. Then, one fateful day, his good life and all his dreams came to a crashing halt. Solomon Northup was kidnapped and carried off into...Watch Movie
Actor
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An Unlikely Weapon
Eddie Adams photographed 13 wars, 6 American Presidents and every major film star of the last 50 years. History would be changed through his lens. But the person Eddie found hardest to impress was himself. In 1968, in 1/500th of a second Eddie Adams photographed a Saigon...Watch Movie

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