Gordon Parks: Pastor E.F. Ledbetter and the Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church, 1953

The first feature article that Parks both wrote and photographed is reassembled through previously unseen images, contact sheets, ephemeral material and Parks' original manuscript Published with The Gordon Parks Foundation and Howard University.In 1953, Gordon Parks returned to Chicago on an assignment for Life magazine to photograph the Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church and the Reverend Ernest F. Ledbetter Sr. for a series on American religious life. This would be the first assignment for which he was both writer as well as photographer. Parks approached the Near West Side church with a decisive eye toward composing compelling images that conveyed simultaneously the universal humanity and local specificity of the religious community. Life never published his photographs or essay, yet as this book demonstrates, Parks' visual and textual representation of Black religious life powerfully documents the dynamism of a community shaped by the Great Migration and Chicago's industrial landscape. This publication features more than 65 previously unpublished photographs and contact sheets, complemented by Parks' unseen manuscript and ephemeral material from the private collection of the Ledbetter family. A range of scholarly essays provides further insight and contextual analysis in art history, cultural geography, Black religious studies and creative writing.Gordon Parks (1912–2006) was an acclaimed American photographer and film director prominent in US documentary photojournalism, particularly in issues of civil rights and poverty. His many photographic series include his iconic photos of poor Americans during the 1940s (taken for the Farm Security Administration Program) and his photographic essays for Life magazine. He directed films including Shaft and the semiautobiographical The Learning Tree. Read more