In My Write Mind

There’s a portrait that I pass every day while walking the halls of the League, one that hangs proudly between two offices on our top floor. It features a man with his eyes closed, playing what seems like a sweet melody on the cello.

He’s casual, in his bare feet. Serene, taking his time. Feeling the music.

Next to him — leaning on his shoulder — is his woman. Eyes closed. At peace. Letting the melody take over. Letting it live.

That portrait, while simple in description, is one of the most compelling I’ve ever seen. Visually stunning in its succinctness. Speaking simultaneously of black love and the lordly power of music. It tells a story. Makes you wonder about its history.

The photographer? Gordon Parks.

“With relentless force it has lifted my black forebears above their trials for centuries. In the African veldt, on slave ships or working on plantations, they found little more to quell the inner turbulence. Music — impassioned, heartening, undying and measureless. During that bitter past it helped to soothe the whip’s lash and the hearts of those fortunate enough to survive; proved to be the only passage to a few costly moments of tranquility. Even now, when melodies sing of blood and lyrics spell hatred, music stays on, filling the offspring of those forebears with the love and strength that keep them moving frontward.” — Music, That Lordly Power, Gordon Parks

It’s photos like the one I pass every day that make me recognize what Gordon Parks was all about. Helps me realize what a relentless force he really was. He separated himself from his peers with his ability to capture those moments, using his self-trained eye to expose both the poor and the posh, riots in Harlem as well as the runways of Europe.

Sadly, he’s left us, finally succumbing after a 13-year battle with cancer. He lived for 93 strong years. He was at once a pioneer, an innovator, a dignified soul. He broke barriers.

He was a force.

To fully understand all that Gordon Parks meant to his generation, you’d have to look through his lens. See the world the way it was when he was growing up. See it for what it was and what he thought it could become.

Growing up the youngest of fifteen children in Fort Collins, Kansas, he knew what poverty felt like. Was forced to focus on that since birth. When his mother passed away at age 16, he moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, with his sister and her husband. Got a job to make ends meet as a piano player in a brothel. Bussed tables. Made a way for himself, always with an eye trained on something bigger and better.

All of those jobs, all of what he saw, prepared him for his true calling — photography.

“I picked up a camera because it was my choice of weapons against what I hated most about the universe: racism, intolerance, poverty.”

Parks was committed to exposing the bigotry and racism that he faced daily, using his weapon of choice to tackle it head-on. He went on assignment during World War II as a correspondent for the first black air corps, the 332nd Fighter group, which was stationed near Detroit.

He was the first black writer/photographer for Life magazine, and traveled both to Harlem to cover the gang riots of 1948 and to Paris to cover the latest in fashion. His gallery of photos from that time spent with young gang leader Red Jackson gave that unrest a face. A name. A story. Forced people to acknowledge the unrest that was taking place within a major city.

Similarly, his work with the Farm Security Administration while in Washington, DC, spawned “American Gothic,” a photo featuring a cleaning woman named Ella Watson standing in front of an American flag, broom in one hand, mop in the other. It was arguably his most famous photograph.

Portraits of Malcolm X in 1962, and Muhammad Ali and the exiled Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver in 1970, evoked the strengths of black leadership at a time when America was shifting from civil rights to black militancy.

Parks’ photography captured not just a moment, but a movement.

So yes, he was one of the world’s greatest photographers. But he wasn’t just that. Parks was also a composer, spending his free moments writing piano concertos and the music and libretto for the ballet “Martin,” a ballet tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

He directed and produced the semi-autobiographical “The Learning Tree” in 1969, which was the first major studio release directed by an African-American. In fact, he was called by some the Jackie Robinson of film, opening doors for the likes of directors Spike Lee and John Singleton.

Then, of course, he brought us the first two “Shaft” releases, including the original in 1971 and it’s sequel a year later with “Shaft’s Big Score.” Actor Richard Roundtree, who became synonomous with his Shaft character, once paid Parks the ultimate compliment, referring to the mustachioed movie maker as “the ultimate cool.”

Cool. And relentless. A force to be reckoned with. He achieved, because he was afraid to fail. He was never the most poised, or most educated, or the smartest. He did, however, stay prepared to take advantage of any opportunity.

In the words of Kanye West, he had ambition, baby.

Surely, his collections of works will increase in value now that he’s left us. It’s inevitable for that to be measured a certain way. The work he put in while alive, though, is immeasurable.

We will always have the works he put together over a lifetime of trials, tribulations and ultimately, success. We will have those images that demand our attention, that give us history. Tell a story.

I’ll take a closer look at that portrait each time I walk by, appreciate it just a little bit more. Try to imagine the man playing one of Parks’ music compositions, imagine its lordly power. Being able to do that just by looking at a photograph speaks more than a thousand words. It speaks for a relentless force of a man. One who lived for bringing moments to life.

Gordon Parks. Rest in peace.