Gordon Parks

With significant accomplishments to his credit as a photographer, journalist, filmmaker, screenwriter, novelist, poet, composer and librettist to his credit, Gordon Parks may well be the African-American Renaissance man par excellence. He has won over 20 awards and received 23 (as of 1995) honorary degrees in literature, fine arts and humane letters. Parks is reputed to be Hollywood's first black director of major films but he first gained acclaim as a preeminent photojournalist at LIFE magazine from 1948-68. His subjects included such diverse topics as the black Muslims, Ernest Hemingway's Paris and life in American ghettoes. "The Learning Tree," Parks' autobiographical novel about growing up black in 1920s Kansas, provided the foundation for his moving, sometimes didactic and stunningly photographed 1969 feature debut which he produced, wrote, directed and scored.