Gordon Parks: Segregation Story

A wonderful selection of photos from Gordon Parks assignment to Shady Grove and Mobile, Alabama, in 1956. As a Life magazine staffer he was the ideal photographer to cover colored life in Jim Crow country and the magazine spread the photos over a very generous twelve pages, though oddly the feature wasn't mentioned on the cover.The sixty photos in the book clearly show how a significant minority of Americans lived in the southern states back then. An aura of poverty comes across in so many of these images and Parks instinctive knack of framing the essential detail pulls you into the composition. The shacks, school, a church service, funeral, work in the fields and kids playing are all here, showing the colored community separate but hopelessly unequal. The full impact of these photos really comes across in the last few photos in the book because here segregation is spelt out in no uncertain terms with signs: 'Colored entrance' at a movie house; two drinking fountains with 'Colored only' on one of them; 'Colored waiting room' at a bus station (actually taken in Nashville) and the book's cover photo at Atlanta airport with a sign, partially obscured, that says 'Colored only'. The final photo in the book shows six children looking through a wire fence at a playground (slides, swimming pool, et cetera) in a white neighborhood.Steidl have nicely added an something extra at the back of the book: the twelve pages from the September 24, 1956 issue of Life that featured Parks segregation photo assignment. Reproduced smaller than Life size but the story by Robert Wallace and all the captions are quite readable. Incidentally, the Steidl five volume box set of Gordon Parks photo career has one of the books devoted to reproductions of several of his Life assignments.

Having seen some of these wonderful photos in an exhibit, I thought the printing in the book was sub-par. Quality of the printing was disappointing.

Really drives home the point of life on the margin during a very trying period.

If you are familiar with Gordon Parks and enjoy photo-essays, then this book is for you. Clichés have some bases in fact. These photographs are worth a thousand words.

Great history in photography

good book

Book arrived quickly and in good condition. I was a little disappointed in the pictures.There were only five pictures that I really wanted but they were excellent.

nice purchase

I think this is a excellent piece of work however it would have been better had it been released a decade or two earlier when Gordon was still with us. The book can lull some into a false sense of security with it's poor black families surviving in a dusty terrain. It's not until the 'coloured only' signs hit you that one realises the inhumane treatment of section of america by another. I would have gone with a different cover the one with the black children drinking at the 'coloured only' water fountain but that’s been done so many times before. However I must admit that every time I look at that white woman on the cover I do get the urge to punch her lights out and chuck her melon head boy at her. Wrong but that’s the power of a photograph.That picture for me sums up the white supremacist doctrine of America, from the cradle to the grave all the black people in this book are ruled by it. I'd like to think that america has moved a long way from this period however the signs might no longer be there but the mindset is still there.It's a book that perhaps every household in america should have.Fight The Power!

Fantastic book with some great images. Print quality high and book arrived in pristine condition. My only downsides is that dust covers always come off or get damaged so would have preferred the cover to be printed onto the front instead. Also would have been great if the 'Life' Magazine pages were presented as an actual magazine insert at the back to add an authentic feel.

A worthwhile publication from a great photographer. But this was originally intended to be a mere photo-essay and there are only a limited number of photos and not many of them have the resonance of the cover photo. I am really glad to have added this to my library but it is a slim volume.

Fabulous piece of American History during difficult times.

Stunning photography. Words are not required to convey the deep division based on race. It is so terribly sad.