Photographs by Gordon Parks/The Gordon Parks Foundation

1. Husband and Wife, Sunday Morning, Detroit, Michigan, 1950.

2. A Lost Story of Segregated America
From LIFE’s First Black Photographer
In 1950, Gordon Parks traveled to his hometown in Kansas to
capture the impact of school segregation in America. The photo
essay never ran, but his images and the story behind them have
resurfaced after 65 years in obscurity

3. St. Louis, 1950.

4. Columbus, Ohio, 1950.

5. Untitled, Fort Scott, Kansas, 1950.

6. Kansas City, Missouri, 1950.

7. Mrs. Jefferson, Fort Scott, Kansas, 1950.

8. Uncle James Parks, Fort Scott, Kansas, 1950.

9. Untitled, Fort Scott, Kansas, 1950.

10. Tenement Dwellers, Chicago, 1950.

11. Fort Scott, Kansas, 1950.

12. Untitled, Fort Scott, Kansas, 1950.

13. Chicago, Illinois, 1950.

14. Fort Scott, Kansas, 1950.

15. Railway station entrance, Fort Scott, Kansas, 1950.

16. Gordon Parks (American, 1912-
2006)
The photos capture a particularly disturbing moment
in American history, captured via the lives of an
African American family, the Thorntons, living under
Jim Crow segregation in 1950s Alabama.

34. Gordon Parks (American, 1912–
2006), Black classroom.