Gordon Parks - Legacy

Legacy

Parks is remembered for photography, film making, music composition, and writing. He also is known for his activism and campaigning for civil rights. He was the first African American to work at Life magazine and the first to write, direct, and score a Hollywood film. He was profiled in the 1967 documentary, "Weapons of Gordon Parks", by American filmmaker Warren Forma.

Parks was a co-founder of Essence magazine. He was one of the early contributors to the style of movies that became known as the blaxploitation genre, in which negative stereotypes of black males as being involved in drugs, violence, and women were exploited for commercially-successful films featuring black actors.

Parks said that freedom was the theme of all of his work. He described it as, "Not allowing anyone to set boundaries, cutting loose the imagination, and then making the new horizons."

Parks' son, Gordon Parks, Jr. (1934–1979) directed films, including Super Fly, Three the Hard Way, and Aaron Loves Angela. His career was cut short when he died in a plane crash on location in Africa.