Civil rights photographer and artist Gordon Parks’ legacy continues to expand today, even as the 20th anniversary of his death arrives on March 7. However, the Gordon Parks Foundation, which celebrates the same milestone this year, is finding it harder to fund its work inspired by the director of “The Learning Tree” and “Shaft.”
Though Gordon Parks Foundation Executive Director Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr., told The Associated Press that federal funding cuts to diversity, equity and inclusion programs have only had a limited direct impact on the foundation’s work due to a “strong base of supporters,” it isn’t immune to the changing, more competitive funding landscape that many arts-focused nonprofits now face.
“We’re definitely sensitive to the fact the world has drastically changed and the arts and DEI and culture have definitely taken a hit,” said Kunhardt.
That puts extra emphasis on fundraising events like the foundation’s gala -- its largest annual fundraising event – especially in a major anniversary year.
The foundation said Tuesday it will honor EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) winner John Legend, Grammy winner Chance the Rapper, Mellon Foundation President Elizabeth Alexander, and artist Henry Taylor at its gala on May 19 in Manhattan. Advocate and philanthropist Lonnie Ali will also be honored at the event, accepting the award for her late husband Muhammad Ali, who was a longtime friend of Parks, and their entire family.
“We need to preserve the past to inspire the future by honoring these individuals,” Kunhardt said. “The particular people on this list for 20 years are very important because they represent many different disciplines that Gordon Parks focused in on and who have championed the arts and social justice.”
Parks was best known for his work at Life magazine, documenting race relations and American life for decades as the magazine’s first Black staff photographer. He famously bought his first camera at a pawnshop and taught himself to use it at a mix of jobs in Minnesota.
That work led to him receiving the Julius Rosenwald Fellowship in 1942, which provided a one-year apprenticeship under Roy Stryker at the Farm Security Administration, alongside acclaimed photographers including Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange. Parks wanted to provide similar support for young artists and the Gordon Parks Foundation now awards numerous fellowships in art, music and writing. Last year, the foundation launched a Legacy Acquisition Fund, which purchases the work of older artists in order to support them and their connection to Parks.
Those programs, along with the star-studded 2021 HBO documentary “A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks,” have fueled a resurgence of interest in Parks and his work.
“People who have had such an extraordinarily long life and so much output of such a high caliber like Parks are bound to become players who become even more important,” said Casey Riley, chair of the Department of Global Contemporary Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. “If you’re paying attention to what he was doing, it will be relevant to the moment.”
Riley -- who curated the museum’s “American Gothic: Gordon Parks and Ella Watson” exhibit, which focused on the creation of one of the 20th century’s most influential photographs -- said that Parks is a “touchstone” for many artists of color, especially Black American artists. However, the Kansas-born Parks has a special bond with artists from Minneapolis and St. Paul, where he spent his formative years as a photographer.
“He came of age here and really began to realize what his dream for his life would be,” Riley said. “It’s a powerful and resonant story for people here. They take a lot of pride in him, but they also see him as one of their own.”
Last month, Minnesota state lawmakers announced plans to honor Parks with a statue in downtown St. Paul.
“He’s a beacon,” Riley said. “He is someone who was thinking about social justice and matters of equity for the entirety of his career and powerfully saw the camera as an essential and critical force in helping us to connect with one another and understand the urgencies of our time.”
That continues today, as tensions run high in Minneapolis-St. Paul following the deaths of ICU nurse Alex Pretti and Minneapolis mother Renee Good at the hands of federal immigration officers. “It’s not an accident that we have so many talented photojournalists here working in the Twin Cities,” Riley said in an interview before Pretti’s death on Saturday. “They very much understand who he was. And the results of their work resounding around the globe right now as we speak is proof of that.”
Further proof comes from the wide range of A-list supporters for Parks and his work. The co-chairs of the annual gala range from musicians Alicia Keys and her husband Swizz Beatz, whose real name is Kasseem Dean, to CNN journalist Anderson Cooper and Brooklyn Nets co-owner Clara Wu Tsai. Super Bowl quarterback and political activist Colin Kaepernick and former Ford Foundation President Darren Walker are among those who will induct this year’s honorees.
“What we’re doing has not really changed with the times,” Kunhardt said. “We’ve been one of the constants. We’ve done it when it wasn’t attractive to celebrate Black art and we’re still doing it. Our authenticity has been the same along the way.”
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FILE - Chance the Rapper attends the premiere of the "Highest 2 Lowest" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Harvey Theater on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - Lonnie Ali, wife of boxing legend Muhammad Ali, appears at the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Ky., on Jan. 13, 2012. (AP Photo/Brian Bohannon, File)
