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Gordon Parks: Segregation Story
In September 1956, "Life" magazine published a photo-essay by Gordon Parks entitled "The Restraints: Open and Hidden," which documented the everyday activities and rituals of one extended African American family living in the rural South under Jim Crow segregation. One of the most powerful photographs depicts Joanne Thornton Wilson and her niece, Shirley Anne Kirksey, standing in front of a theater in Mobile, Alabama, an image which became a forceful "weapon of choice," as Parks would say, in the struggle against racism and segregation. While 26 photographs were eventually published in "Life" and some were exhibited in his lifetime, the bulk of Parks' assignment was thought to be lost. In 2011, five years after Parks' death, The Gordon Parks Foundation discovered more than 70 color transparencies at the bottom of an old storage bin marked "Segregation Series" that are now published for the first time in "Segregation Story."
119 pages, Hardcover
First published September 30, 2014
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About the author
Gordon Parks
110 books116 followersGordon Parks 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.
Parks is remembered for his activism, filmmaking, photography, and writings. 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 also a campaigner for civil rights; subject of film and print profiles, notably Half Past Autumn in 2000; and had a gallery exhibit of his photo-related, abstract oil paintings in 1981. He was also a co-founder of Essence magazine, and one of the early contributors to the "blaxploitation" genre.
Parks also performed as a jazz pianist. His first job was as a piano player in a brothel. His song "No Love," composed in another brothel, was performed over a national radio broadcast by Larry Funk and his orchestra in the early 30s. He composed Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1953) at the encouragement of black American conductor Dean Dixon and his wife, pianist Vivian and with the help of composer Henry Brant. In 1989, he composed and choreographed Martin, a ballet dedicated to civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.
Beginning in the 1960s, Parks branched out into literature, writing The Learning Tree (1963), several books of poetry illustrated with his own photographs, and three volumes of memoirs.In 1981, Parks turned to fiction with Shannon, a novel about Irish immigrants fighting their way up the social ladder in turbulent early 20th-century New York. Parks' writing accomplishments include novels, poetry, autobiography, and non-fiction including photographic instructional manuals and filmmaking books. Parks also wrote a poem called "The Funeral".
Parks received over 20 honorary doctorates in his lifetime. He died of cancer at the age of 93.
Parks is remembered for his activism, filmmaking, photography, and writings. 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 also a campaigner for civil rights; subject of film and print profiles, notably Half Past Autumn in 2000; and had a gallery exhibit of his photo-related, abstract oil paintings in 1981. He was also a co-founder of Essence magazine, and one of the early contributors to the "blaxploitation" genre.
Parks also performed as a jazz pianist. His first job was as a piano player in a brothel. His song "No Love," composed in another brothel, was performed over a national radio broadcast by Larry Funk and his orchestra in the early 30s. He composed Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1953) at the encouragement of black American conductor Dean Dixon and his wife, pianist Vivian and with the help of composer Henry Brant. In 1989, he composed and choreographed Martin, a ballet dedicated to civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.
Beginning in the 1960s, Parks branched out into literature, writing The Learning Tree (1963), several books of poetry illustrated with his own photographs, and three volumes of memoirs.In 1981, Parks turned to fiction with Shannon, a novel about Irish immigrants fighting their way up the social ladder in turbulent early 20th-century New York. Parks' writing accomplishments include novels, poetry, autobiography, and non-fiction including photographic instructional manuals and filmmaking books. Parks also wrote a poem called "The Funeral".
Parks received over 20 honorary doctorates in his lifetime. He died of cancer at the age of 93.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
June 21, 2024
Ahhhh. I am so excited right now. Last week I decided to treat myself to this gorgeous volume of photography by Gordon Parks. I was made aware of his work, funnily enough, by Kendrick Lamar's music video Element in which he pays tribute to this important historical figure by recreating many of his famous photographs.
Some of you may know that I am currently focusing on supporting black artists, primarily writers and musicians, but now we can add photographers to the mix (Jamel Shabazz, I am coming for you!), and you don't know how happy that makes me.
His photographs for Life magazine, namely his 1956 photo essay, titled The Restraints: Open and Hidden, illuminated the effects of racial segregation while simultaneously following the everyday lives and activities of three families in and near Mobile, Alabama: the Thronton’s, Causey’s, and Tanner’s. While Parks’ photo essay served as a decisive documentation of the Jim Crow South and all of its effects, he did not simply focus on demonstrations, boycotts, and brutality that were associated with that period instead, however, he emphasized the prosaic details of the lives of several families.
These quiet, compelling photographs were tactical players in Parks' aesthetic campaign for civil rights, eliciting a reaction that he believed was vital to the undoing of racial prejudice: empathy. Rather than incite horror or guilt about a distant event that most viewers could do little to control or stop, the photographs helped readers of Life to see and understand their own stake in the story of civil rights.
The images Gordon Parks captured in 1956 helped the world know the status quo of seperate and unequal, and recorded for history an era that we should always remember, a time we never want to return to. Charlaynr Hunter-Gault, a time witness who wrote the introduction to this collection of Parks' photography, said: Our younger people need to know the history chronicled by Gordon Parks, a man I am honored to call my friend, so that they look around themselves, they can recognize the progress we've made, but also need to fulfill the promise of Brown, ensuring that all God's children, regardless of race, creed, or color, are able to live a life of equality, freedom, and dignity.
She stressed how authentic Parks' work is, and how easily he managed to encapsulate the reality of black people living in Alabama – a constant struggle between desperation and hope: "It takes a village to raise a child. The adults in our lives who constituted the village were our parents, our neighbors, our teachers, and our preachers, and when they couldn't give us first-class citizenship legally, they gave us a first-class sense of ourselves. We could not drink from the white water-fountain, but that didn't stop us from dressing up in our Sunday best and holding our heads high wen the occasion demanded."
The photo essay opens with a portrait of Mr and Mrs Albert Thornton, Sr. (1956, Mobile, Alabama). Their impeccable attire and formal posture suggests their status as the patriarch and matriarch of a large southern family.
The portrait was taken by Parks on assignment for a September 1956 Life magazine photo essay which documented the lives of an extended African American family in the context of segregation. Characteristic of the photographer's high aesthetic standards and commitment to social justice, the work represents Parks' consequential rethinking of the types of images that could sway public opinion on civil rigths.
The Restraints: Open and Hidden looks at the effects of the South's draconian statutes, protocols, and unwritten 'laws', designed to maintain the racial status quo – on the Thorntons and their nine children and nineteen grandchildren, from the humilation of having to learn the Bill of Rights by heart in order to be allowed to vote, to the discomfort of having to expose your child to segregation signs.
The Restraints: Open and Hidden was a turning point in Parks' career, one that afforde him, for the first time, a vast national platform for challenging racial and economic subjugation in the Jim Crow South. Writing about the week he spent in Shady Grove, Parks expressed a profound faith in the potential of black resistance – and of his camera, which he endeavored to use 'effectively against intolerance' – to combat segregation.
Parks was harassed constantly during this particular job. But if the Life assignment was dangerous for Parks, it was even more so for the people he left behind. White supremacists grasped the camera's potential to expose their deadly prejudices and turn public opinion against them. They sought retribution after the photo essay was published and some of its sources revealed. The Causeys were persecuted by white townspeople who where infuriated by Allie Lee's outspokenness. Service stations refused to sell gas to her husband. His truck was seized [without it he couldn't work]. Allie was fired from her job as well. Fearing for their safety, the Causeys moved with their children out of Alabama.
It's infuriating to read about this reality. Every word and every photo packs an emotional punch. This photo essay is a milestone of African American photography and history. Everyone should check it out!
The pictures Parks took for Life achieved one of his abiding goals as an artist: to make visible the nuances of a story that many chose to ignore or dismiss. In the end, they offer nothing less than an alternative view of an epic struggle, reminding us that it was fought – and won – on many fronts, from the public square to the private home.
Some of you may know that I am currently focusing on supporting black artists, primarily writers and musicians, but now we can add photographers to the mix (Jamel Shabazz, I am coming for you!), and you don't know how happy that makes me.
It is impossible for me now to photograph a hungry child without remembering the hunger of my own childhood. Time has taught me that it is not enough to look, condemn, or praise – to be just an observer. I must attempt to transcend the limitations of my own experience by sharing, as deeply as possible, the problems of those people I photograph.Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks (November 30, 1912 – March 7, 2006) was an American photographer, musician, writer and film director, who became prominent in U.S. documentary photojournalism in the 1940s through 1970s – particularly in issues of civil rights, poverty and African-Americans.
His photographs for Life magazine, namely his 1956 photo essay, titled The Restraints: Open and Hidden, illuminated the effects of racial segregation while simultaneously following the everyday lives and activities of three families in and near Mobile, Alabama: the Thronton’s, Causey’s, and Tanner’s. While Parks’ photo essay served as a decisive documentation of the Jim Crow South and all of its effects, he did not simply focus on demonstrations, boycotts, and brutality that were associated with that period instead, however, he emphasized the prosaic details of the lives of several families.
These quiet, compelling photographs were tactical players in Parks' aesthetic campaign for civil rights, eliciting a reaction that he believed was vital to the undoing of racial prejudice: empathy. Rather than incite horror or guilt about a distant event that most viewers could do little to control or stop, the photographs helped readers of Life to see and understand their own stake in the story of civil rights.
The images Gordon Parks captured in 1956 helped the world know the status quo of seperate and unequal, and recorded for history an era that we should always remember, a time we never want to return to. Charlaynr Hunter-Gault, a time witness who wrote the introduction to this collection of Parks' photography, said: Our younger people need to know the history chronicled by Gordon Parks, a man I am honored to call my friend, so that they look around themselves, they can recognize the progress we've made, but also need to fulfill the promise of Brown, ensuring that all God's children, regardless of race, creed, or color, are able to live a life of equality, freedom, and dignity.
She stressed how authentic Parks' work is, and how easily he managed to encapsulate the reality of black people living in Alabama – a constant struggle between desperation and hope: "It takes a village to raise a child. The adults in our lives who constituted the village were our parents, our neighbors, our teachers, and our preachers, and when they couldn't give us first-class citizenship legally, they gave us a first-class sense of ourselves. We could not drink from the white water-fountain, but that didn't stop us from dressing up in our Sunday best and holding our heads high wen the occasion demanded."
The photo essay opens with a portrait of Mr and Mrs Albert Thornton, Sr. (1956, Mobile, Alabama). Their impeccable attire and formal posture suggests their status as the patriarch and matriarch of a large southern family.
The portrait was taken by Parks on assignment for a September 1956 Life magazine photo essay which documented the lives of an extended African American family in the context of segregation. Characteristic of the photographer's high aesthetic standards and commitment to social justice, the work represents Parks' consequential rethinking of the types of images that could sway public opinion on civil rigths.
The Restraints: Open and Hidden looks at the effects of the South's draconian statutes, protocols, and unwritten 'laws', designed to maintain the racial status quo – on the Thorntons and their nine children and nineteen grandchildren, from the humilation of having to learn the Bill of Rights by heart in order to be allowed to vote, to the discomfort of having to expose your child to segregation signs.
The Restraints: Open and Hidden was a turning point in Parks' career, one that afforde him, for the first time, a vast national platform for challenging racial and economic subjugation in the Jim Crow South. Writing about the week he spent in Shady Grove, Parks expressed a profound faith in the potential of black resistance – and of his camera, which he endeavored to use 'effectively against intolerance' – to combat segregation.
Parks was harassed constantly during this particular job. But if the Life assignment was dangerous for Parks, it was even more so for the people he left behind. White supremacists grasped the camera's potential to expose their deadly prejudices and turn public opinion against them. They sought retribution after the photo essay was published and some of its sources revealed. The Causeys were persecuted by white townspeople who where infuriated by Allie Lee's outspokenness. Service stations refused to sell gas to her husband. His truck was seized [without it he couldn't work]. Allie was fired from her job as well. Fearing for their safety, the Causeys moved with their children out of Alabama.
It's infuriating to read about this reality. Every word and every photo packs an emotional punch. This photo essay is a milestone of African American photography and history. Everyone should check it out!
The pictures Parks took for Life achieved one of his abiding goals as an artist: to make visible the nuances of a story that many chose to ignore or dismiss. In the end, they offer nothing less than an alternative view of an epic struggle, reminding us that it was fought – and won – on many fronts, from the public square to the private home.
November 28, 2017
Great book and very, very powerful images.
February 15, 2026
”It is impossible for me now to photograph a hungry child without remembering the hunger of my own childhood. Time has taught me that it is not enough to look, condemn, or praise-to be just an observer. I must attempt to transcend the limitations of my own experience by sharing, as deeply as possible, the problems of those people I photograph.”
This is a series of photographs that Gordon Parks took of an African American family in the segregated South for a 1956 Life magazine article and wow this just absolutely took my breath away. I feel as if the moments from the Civil Rights Movement that have remained in the public consciousness have been the flashiest: grand speeches in front of a sea of people, protests, police brutality, etc… Those moments were pivotal to the movement of course, but here Parks showcases a much more intimate and mundane side of life that is often a blind spot for mainstream media.
A family sitting on their porch, kids playing in the road, members of a church singing together. In other words everyday life. As the 1956 Life article points out though, the important difference here between these families in the photos and other American families are their restraints: ”Many white Southerners are as badly off as the Negroes, but have one great advantage: if they can, they may move wherever they please. Negroes may move only to another segregated neighborhood.”
I can write and write and write, but everything will fall short of the emotional impact one gets when looking a group of black children gaze at a whites only playground. This was an absolutely brilliant book. You can find some of the photographs here: https://high.org/exhibition/gordon-pa...
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October 20, 2020a historically important record and visually impactful reminder of the existence of segregation
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August 8, 2016"Segregation Story includes sixty photographs Parks made while working on the project. In many ways, they are even more powerful without any text, for words are like a small cup dipped into the deep well of these images, which are so rich in information–and, at times, in mystery."
–Barry Schwabsky on Gordon Parks: Segregation Story in the April/May 2015 issue of Bookforum
To read the rest of this review, go to Bookforum:
http://bookforum.com/inprint/022_01
–Barry Schwabsky on Gordon Parks: Segregation Story in the April/May 2015 issue of Bookforum
To read the rest of this review, go to Bookforum:
http://bookforum.com/inprint/022_01
June 28, 2021
This is so good! Short and powerful. I appreciate the personal perspective from Charlayne Hunter-Gault, in which she reflects on her own experiences living through segregation, and the context of the photos and their effects in Maurice Berger’s essay (including the retribution’s against the photographs subjects after the publication of the Life article). Highly recommend.
Seeing these photos made me wish my own family’s history had been better documented through photographs - what did life look like for my parents growing up, and for their parents? I have seen a couple of photographs, and have visited their childhood homes in rural Indian villages, which has given me enough to imagine what it may have been like. I was surprised that seeing these photographs made me think of that.
Seeing these photos made me wish my own family’s history had been better documented through photographs - what did life look like for my parents growing up, and for their parents? I have seen a couple of photographs, and have visited their childhood homes in rural Indian villages, which has given me enough to imagine what it may have been like. I was surprised that seeing these photographs made me think of that.
February 22, 2024
I heard about Gordon Parks from a children's book and was immediately struck by his photographs. His career and work speak for themselves. I really enjoyed how this book included the actual LIFE piece as it was printed, and the foreword mentions the reactions of the public and what happened to the subjects of the piece. I will definitely be looking more into his work.
March 11, 2024
A fabulously presented volume of a great set of images. Parks really shone a light on discrimination and living conditions through his masterful photographs. A sense of justified anger comes through the work here. The reproduced article was relatively mild. I'd have like the original article to have been somewhat larger in scale but that's a minor quibble.
February 18, 2026
Always eye opening to see the discrimination that existed long past the emancipation proclamation. The photography by Gordon Parks is beautiful. The narrative about the Thornton family pointed out some finer points of the photography and how it accented the conditions of the family. I enjoyed reading this book and looking through the photos.
May 11, 2021
Beautifully done pictures depicting life for a Black person in America. Segregation everywhere, subtly (white mannequins modeling clothing) to obvious whites or coloreds only signs. We really haven't come that far yet, have we? :(
May 11, 2018
WOW! . Puts a big light on segregation in the south. Loved the photographs!!
January 23, 2019
Moving, unforgettable pictures.
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February 23, 2021Not much to read in this one, but beautiful photography documenting jim crow segregation.
April 18, 2021
My heart
April 3, 2023
Each photo ignites story. To see segregation in the flesh evokes so many emotions.
November 16, 2025
massive important work enjoyed every glance hope to see it printed full scale someday long live gordon parks
July 31, 2016
Awesome! (Why is it always harder to describe the books you LOVE as opposed to the other ones?) Ok so, it's a book in three eloquent parts:
1. A full scale reproduction of a feature story on segregation in the South in LIFE Magazine's Sept 24, 1956 issue, plus the cover of that issue (which does not reference the story at all, which in turn becomes a subtle part of the story of course.)
2. The photo plates - gorgeous four color reproductions - made by famed photographer Gordon Parks for possible use in the story. (Again, which photos wound up being used and which did not is also a subtle signal of some kind.)
3. Background essays/introductions by Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Maurice Berger, Michael Shapiro and Peter Kunhardt, Jr. , which include details on the photographer as well as the unintended consequences of the LIFE story's publication.
The essays are so well written and fascinating that a visiting friend, who picked up this book to riffle through the photos, wound up transfixed by them...reading every word as I waited for her to resurface.
Then we had an energetic conversation about whether the images were too beautiful for the subject, whether Parks should have warned a well dressed woman that her bra strap was showing, how his background informed the compositions, etc.
This is really a great book. The only fail for me was I was hoping the plates would include more images from Parks' Atlanta Airport series (one of which is featured on the cover). There weren't any, but really that's a small quibble. So five stars baby!
1. A full scale reproduction of a feature story on segregation in the South in LIFE Magazine's Sept 24, 1956 issue, plus the cover of that issue (which does not reference the story at all, which in turn becomes a subtle part of the story of course.)
2. The photo plates - gorgeous four color reproductions - made by famed photographer Gordon Parks for possible use in the story. (Again, which photos wound up being used and which did not is also a subtle signal of some kind.)
3. Background essays/introductions by Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Maurice Berger, Michael Shapiro and Peter Kunhardt, Jr. , which include details on the photographer as well as the unintended consequences of the LIFE story's publication.
The essays are so well written and fascinating that a visiting friend, who picked up this book to riffle through the photos, wound up transfixed by them...reading every word as I waited for her to resurface.
Then we had an energetic conversation about whether the images were too beautiful for the subject, whether Parks should have warned a well dressed woman that her bra strap was showing, how his background informed the compositions, etc.
This is really a great book. The only fail for me was I was hoping the plates would include more images from Parks' Atlanta Airport series (one of which is featured on the cover). There weren't any, but really that's a small quibble. So five stars baby!
March 31, 2016
Brings a lot of issues home
May 22, 2016
Although embedded in a time these photographs transcend time. Thanks to the Gordon Parks Foundation and the High Museum for keeping the legacy of Gordon Parks alive.
November 14, 2018
It’s always shocking to reconfront how bad PoC had it in my home state. We are so use to the “Leave it to Beaver” idea of the 1950s, that to see the conditions of this family shatters it to bits.
Some really well composed shots in here too that grab one at the heart and refuses to let go.
Some really well composed shots in here too that grab one at the heart and refuses to let go.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews