Gordon Parks: podcast appearances and interviews

Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks was an American photographer, composer, author, poet, and filmmaker. He gained prominence in U.S. documentary photojournalism from the 1940s through the 1970s, focusing on issues of civil rights, poverty, and African Americans. Parks is well known for his powerful photographs of impoverished Americans during the 1940s, which were taken for a federal government project, as well as his photographic essays for Life magazine. In addition to his work in photography, Parks was a filmmaker and is notably recognized as the director of the film Shaft. He was one of the first black American filmmakers to direct films within the Hollywood system, creating works that explored the experiences of slaves and struggling black Americans and helping to develop the blaxploitation genre. His film The Learning Tree has been recognized by the National Film Registry as the first feature film by a black director to be financed by a major Hollywood studio.