A Choice of Weapons

Gordon Parks -- photographer for 'Life' magazine, writer, composer, artist, and filmmaker -- was only 16 in 1928 when he moved from Kansas to St. Paul, Minnesota, after his mother's death. There, homeless and hungry, he began his fight to survive the brutal Minnesota winter, to educate himself, and to 'prove my worth.' Working at a succession of jobs from janitor to railroad porter to busboy to musician to professional basketball player, in such places as St. Paul, Chicago, and New York, Parks struggled against poverty and racism, not just to avoid failure but to achieve success. He taught himself photography with a secondhand camera, worked for local newspapers serving the black community, and ... began to document the poverty among blacks on Chicago's South Side. His portfolio won him a year-long fellowship, which he spent with the Farm Security Administration ...