CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 2/8/2018

Gordon Parks: A Harlem Family

"What I want, what I am, what you force me to be, is what you are." This headline begins a remarkable text by Gordon Parks', published alongside his cover photoessay for the March 8, 1968 issue of Life magazine, reproduced here from Gordon Parks: Harlem Story. Parks continues, "For I am you, staring back from a mirror of poverty and despair, of revolt and freedom. Look at me and know that to destroy me is to destroy yourself. You are weary of the long hot summers. I am tired of the long hungered winters. We are not so far apart as it might seem. There is something about both of us that goes deeper than blood or black and white. It is our common search for a better life, a better world. I march now over the same ground you once marched. I fight for the same things you sill fight for. My children's needs are the same as your children's. I too am America. America is me. It gave me the only life I know—so I must share in its survival. Look at me. Listen to me. Try to understand my struggle against your racism. There is yet a chance for us to live in peace behind these restless skies."