Gordon Roger Alexander Buchannan Parks (Nov. 30, 1812- Mar. 7, 2006) was a famous photographer, musician, poet, journalist, activist and director. He had a rough beginning living in segregated Fort Scott, Kansas. When he was fifteen his mother passed away and was sent up to Minneapolis Minnesota to live with his sister. He was kicked out of her house by her husband and was homeless on and off until he was twenty-five. He also dropped out of high school. During this time Parks was a piano player in a bordello, a busboy and worked on the railroad. He became interested in photography while working on the railroad and took his first pictures in Seattle in 1937. Parks, one of fifteen grew up poor and became one of the best fashion photographers in the 1940s. He worked for many magazines including Glamour and Vogue.
He was the first African American to work as a photographer for the Farm Security Administration. He documented the conditions of African Americans. In 1948 he became the first African American photographer for Life magazine. He photographed Harlem gang warfare, American poets and civil rights movements. He also photographed Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and the Black Panthers.
Parks directed eight films. Shaft (1971) is his most famous. He became in the first African American director for a major Hollywood studio in 1969. Warner Brothers released The Learning Tree. He also was director for Flavio (1964), The World of Piri Thomas (1968), The Learning Tree (1969), Shaft’s Big Score! (1972), The Super Cops (1974), Leadbelly (1976), and Solomon Northup’s Odyssey (1984). These movies range from documentaries, drama to comedy. He also composed classical, blues and popular music. (www.imdb.com Gordon Parks)
He has written several novels, memories and has also written poetry. Our library has several of his books. He was the co-founder of the magazine Essence which is a llifestyle magazine for African-American women. Founded in 1969 with Edward Lewis and Clarence O. Smith. (http://www.essence.com/) Throughout this post are pictures of books that Feinberg has. We also have Life from 1939-1952 if you are interested in checking out some of his work. His life story was told in a TV documentary called Half Past Autumn: The Life and Works of Gordon Parks(2000) Which was produced by Denzel Washington.
Egbert Austin Williams (Nov 12-1875to March 04-1922) in Sweets, Antigua and moved to the United States in 1885. In 1893 in San Francisco he and George Walker became a comedy team and were very successful. He was the first African American to take lead role in a Broadway production called The Gold Bug (1896). In 1909 he started in Mr. Load of Koal which was the last black musical on Broadway for over ten years. In Dahomey (1903) a musical comedy was the first full-length musical written and played by blacks to be performed at a major Broadway house. He was the best selling black recording artist before 1920 and was prominent in the development of African American music. In 1901 he and George Walker were the first African American performers to record with a major recording company (Victor Company) He made about 80 recordings from 1920-21. He was the first African American performer in the Ziegfeld Follies from 1910 to 1920. He also preformed in A Senegambian Carnival, A Lucky Coon, The Policy Players, Sons of Ham, Abyssinia (1906), Bandanna Land (1909) and Under the Bamboo Tree (1921) He also made film performances, however most have been lost. The best film available of him is A Natural Born Gambler. In 1940, Duke Ellington composed and recoreded “A Portrait of Bert Williams” in his honor. 
