Lost Photographs of a Segregated World

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

If not used to seeing segregated America in pretty pastels this is likely because typically the civil rights photography are black & white and instantly disturbing. These rare pictures, discovered after the photographer’s death at the bottom of a storage box, wrapped in paper and masking tape was marked, “Segregation Series.” They are unlike any images seen from this dark era in history.

The man behind the camera was LIFE photographer Gordon Parks, who believed a portrait was a forceful “weapon of choice” in the struggle against inequality. Parks was on assignment in September 1956 in the suburbs of the deep South under Jim Crow segregation laws. Only twenty of dozens of photos were published for the article and it was his foundation, the Gordon Parks Foundation that uncovered the rest of his photographs, thought lost forever.

A woman waits in line for a “colored only” water fountain, Parks’ photography was effective and quietly compelling, Parks took a unique approach to undoing segregation and prejudice. In his depiction of African American life, he attempted to show white Americans how similar their aspirations, responsibilities, habits, family life and things as simple as their tastes in fashion, were to African Americans.

Photographs of the Gordon Parks foundation, sourced via the NYTimes

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