In 1950, Life assigned Parks to produce a story about school segregation, then an increasingly important issue in the nation’s discourse on civil rights. Parks chose to return to his hometown of Fort Scott, Kansas, to find out what had become of his classmates from the segregated Plaza School. Part documentary, part nostalgia, this trip offered Parks a chance to reflect on how his understanding of a place changed with time and how segregation affected the lives of his classmates and friends.
Compare the two photographs of Parks’s former classmates. They ended up in different cities, Chicago and Detroit respectively. What else is different about their life paths? How might they each represent the effects of segregation?
Imagine you had the opportunity to return to your hometown 30 years from now. What might you expect to see? What would you photograph?
Gordon Parks, Tenement Dwellers, Chicago, 1950, gelatin silver print, 32.7 × 27.62 cm (12 7/8 × 10 7/8 in.), The Gordon Parks Foundation, GP04541. Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation














