The Photographic Archives of Gordon Parks Will Be Housed at Purchase College

A vast collection of photographic prints and negatives from the work of Gordon Parks will be housed at Purchase College in Pleasantville, New York. Parks was the first black staff photographer at Life magazine. He chronicled the civil rights movement and did photo shoots of many of the nation’s most prominent professional athletes and entertainers. Parks, who also was a musician, poet, novelist, and filmmaker, died in 2006.

The Parks collection includes more than 4,000 prints and 20,000 negatives. The archive will be preserved, digitized, catalogued, and made available to researchers.

Copyright © 2009. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.