Untitled, Chicago, Illinois, from the series "Chicago Muslim Story" (1963)

<p><a href="http://www.artic.edu/artists/20027/gordon-parks">Gordon Parks</a> relocated from Minnesota to Chicago’s South Side in 1940, immersing himself in the local art community while operating a portrait studio out of the South Side Community Art Center. In 1941 he was awarded a Rosenwald Fellowship for a portfolio of photographs he created on the South Side; the award gave him the means to move east to Washington, DC. By 1948 <em>Life</em> magazine hired him as its first African American staff photographer.</p> <p>In 1963 Parks returned to Chicago on assignment for <em>Life</em> to report on the Nation of Islam, newly headquartered in the city. Parks gained unprecedented access to this radical civil rights movement through his friendship with Malcolm X, who arranged a meeting with Elijah Muhammad, the group’s leader, so that Parks could obtain permission to proceed with the story. Parks spent weeks with the Black Muslim community, documenting a range of its activities—from self-defense training to religious services led by Malcolm X.</p> <p>Parks’s photo-essay ran in the May 31, 1963, issue of <em>Life</em>, along with an essay by Parks that reflects on his dual status as insider and outsider. The text begins with his return to Chicago after nearly a decade and his memories of “the hopelessness that seeped into the black souls of that jungle.” Parks goes on to describe his current position: “I was a Black Man in White Man’s clothing, sent by the very ‘devils’ [Elijah Muhammad] criticized so much. . . . I wondered whether or not my achievements in the white world had cost me a certain objectivity.” He concludes, “I sympathize with much of what they say, but I also disagree with much of what they say. . . . Nevertheless, I acknowledge that the circumstance of common struggle has willed us brothers.”</p>