[For this
year’s MLK week series, I’ll highlight under-remembered figures, histories,
and stories that can expand our collective memories of the Civil Rights
Movement. Leading up to a special weekend post on 21st century
voices!]
In June 2015, I
dedicated a weeklong series to the amazing photographer, author, filmmaker,
activist, and American Gordon
Parks. He still needs far better remembering, to expand our collective
memories of the Civil Rights era and for many other reasons. Here are links to
those five posts:
1)
The
week started with a few thoughts on the MFA exhibition Gordon Parks: Back to Fort Scott
that kicked off my interest in Parks and his work;
2)
On
Tuesday I highlighted three exemplary projects in Parks’ career as a talented
and groundbreaking photographer;
3)
On
Wednesday I wrote about his autobiographical novel The Learning Tree (1963) and its film adaptation (1969), both of
which remind us of the vital need to expand our canon beyond To Kill a Mockingbird;
4)
On
Thursday I used Parks’ role as director of the first two Shaft movies to
think about the problems and possibilities of Blaxsploitation films;
5)
And
on Friday I took a step back to think about the complicated, crucial
artistic genre of portrait photos (for a lot more on photography and Parks, see
the work of Professor John Edwin
Mason, for whose book on Parks I can’t wait!).
Special post
this weekend,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Civil Rights figures, histories, or stories you’d want to add to our collective
memories?
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