Gordon Parks (1912–2006) was one of the twentieth century’s preeminent American photographers. From the 1940s through the dawn of the twenty-first century, he created work that focused on social justice, race relations, the civil rights movement, and the African American experience. Born into poverty and segregation in Fort Scott, Kansas, Parks won a Julius Rosenwald Fund fellowship in 1942 and went on to do groundbreaking work for the Farm Security Administration and magazines such as Ebony, Vogue, and Life, where he was a staff photographer for more than two decades. Beyond his work in photography, Parks was a respected film director, composer, memoirist, novelist and poet, who left behind an exceptional body of work that is a powerful record and interpretation of American life and culture.