Composer, film-maker and photographer Gordon Parks (1912–2006) was born into a society
which was segregated and where black people could not make it out of menial work and poverty.
Like other black people, Parks was on the receiving end of intolerable bigotry in New York. He
vowed to document this after being made to eat at the back door of restaurants and being
refused service in shops. However, he soon found that photographing bigotry was no easy task;
the type of experience he had endured eluded the camera so he set off to photograph the plight
of black people in New York City. His work straddles documentary (his work on the FSA project),
photojournalism and editorial photography.
American Gothic is Parks’ most famous image,
taken in 1942 during his involvement with
the FSA project. It shows the subject (a black
woman) as object, an object to be pitied
or derided, as well as the conflict between
nationhood and nationality.
For the story of how Parks came to take this
photograph, visit:
http://layersofmeaning.org/
archives/000246.html
In American Gothic Parks uses the medium
of photography to expose aspects of the
treatment of black people in America.
However photography has also been used in a
less positive way in relation to race.