‘The camera is my weapon of choice’: Gordon Parks’ era-defining shots of segregation – and those who defied it

Gordon Parks, a pioneering Black photographer, documented racial segregation and the struggle against it in America. Life magazine sent Parks to Alabama in 1956 to capture the realities of the Jim Crow South after the Montgomery bus boycott. His photographs offered intimate and vivid depictions of the daily indignities faced by Black Americans. These powerful images reveal both the ugliness of racism and the resilience of those opposing it. His work is now being showcased in a new survey at the Alison Jacques gallery in London. The exhibition was curated by Bryan Stevenson, a civil rights attorney. Stevenson selected photographs spanning Parks' active years as a photographer, from 1942 to 1967. The images chosen also highlight pivotal periods of unrest within the country. Parks's work captures the spirit of the Civil Rights era and its impact on American society.