Gordon Parks’ Fort Scott

The small city of Fort Scott, Kansas
reveals yet another example of the complex history of United States Civil
Rights. Prior to the Civil War, Kansas declared itself a free state, welcoming
60,000 African-Americans fleeing slavery in the south and southern Missouri
between the years 1875-1881. In 1896, the Supreme Court ruling the in case of
Plessey vs. Fergusson allowed individual states to reject or accept segregation
laws. Kansas, despite its initial acceptance of former slaves, was no longer a
place of refuge for African-Americans. Under state law, it was justifiable to
require and provide separate public facilities, deny services, or prevent the
sale or renting of homes to African-Americans.[1]
Born in 1912 to Sarah and Jackson Parks, in the small city of Fort Scott,
Kansas Gordon Parks was no stranger to the racism and discrimination that
existed throughout his home state.

As a child, Parks was required to
attend an all-black school until ninth grade and was denied the ability to play
on sports teams or in parks with white children. Gordon, like everyone else
that looked like him, received health care from the city’s one African-American
doctor, who if needed to, was not allowed to perform any major surgery. Parks
was discouraged by his white school counselor to plan for college, and
witnessed police brutality against innocent friends. After the passing of his
mother in 1927, fifteen year-old Gordon was sent to live with one if his older
sisters in St. Paul, MN.[2]
Parks did not return to his boyhood home until 1948 when he was hired full time
by Life Magazine and assigned a story that focused on segregation In America’s
education systems. Parks found and photographed the lives of his former
classmates from the Second Plaza, more popularly known as the Hawking’s’ School
(fig.1).[3]

 Shortly after his trip to the Midwest, Parks
wrote his first novel, The Learning Tree
after accepting an offer from to write a novel based off his boyhood
experiences in Kansas. The semi-autobiographical work blends fiction and
reality as Newt, the novels’ protagonist, interacts with non-fictional
characters such as bigoted Sheriff Kirky and narrow-minded Miss McClintock . In
1965, Parks directed the film version of the novel, becoming the first
African-American to create a Hollywood film. When Parks made the decision to
film several scenes in Fort Scott, the city reacted with mixed feelings as many
feared Parks’ negative childhood memories would have too large of an impact on
the film creating a bad reputation for the residents. Despite the reservations
of some, others welcomed Parks with hopes his fame would help revive their
dying city. Unfortunately, Fort Scott did not experience a great revival, and
to this day remains an impoverished area.

Since opening its doors in 2004, The
Gordon Parks Museum/ Center for Culture and Diversity at Fort Scott Community
College hosts an annual celebration with scheduled events such as poetry and
photography contests for school children, guided tours of Fort Scott, and
discussions emphasizing the museum’s commitment to not only preserve the work
and legacy of Gordon Parks, but to use Parks’ life story “to teach about
artistic creativity, cultural awareness, and the role of diversity in our
lives”.[4]
In its early years, the celebration, and the physical space of the museum
functioned as a place of reunion for friends and family connected through both
Gordon Parks and the City of Fort Scott; a place where they could share stories
and experiences that gave a different kind life to Parks’ work.[5]
After visiting Fort Scott during the actual celebration, it is now clear to me
that it is impossible to separate Gordon Parks from the American Civil Rights
Movement. It is impossible to tell the story of Gordon Parks without the
stories of the black community.

Hug the Woman Who Hugged the Man

I was invited to attend the Annual
celebration as part of the Gordon Parks Archive Project at Kansas State along
with Daniel, another intern and Dr. Katy Karlin by Jill, director of the Gordon
Parks Museum/ Center for Culture and Diversity. Katy, Daniel and I arrived at
the celebration on Friday just after lunch with enough time to set up for
Katy’s discussion, Digitizing the
Learning Tree. She explained the progress and goals of the project, noting
the significant contributions from Jill, the museum’s director (Fig. 2). After
Katy’s presentation ended, Gordon’s
niece Robin was the first to speak during the question and answer period. Robin
has a very distinct voice; one that is far
from timid and commands attention. She, like many members of the Parks family,
has a way with words. Later, Robin inquired about my heritage; I
hesitated then told her I was an American. She said that was fine, but stated
that I also looked Mexican. I informed her guess was correct, my mother’s
father was born in Mexico. Robin hugged me said that Uncle
Gordon would be very happy to see Daniel and I;
it meant “things were getting better”.

Shortly after meeting Robin, I joined
Katy and Daniel for a drive by Tour of Gordon Park’s
Fort Scott. The tour included stops that were not only significant
to Parks such as his family’s old house, but also the black community such as
Hawkins School. Anne, a Fort Scott native, provided historical and personal
stories of each stop (Fig. 3). Anne was born in Fort Scott, and similarly to
Gordon, she attended the Hawkins School before entering an integrated high
school. The school was named in honor of its Principle, Professor Ernest J.
Hawkins who devoted sixty-five years to providing a quality education for
African Americans (Fig. 4). Anne spoke very fondly of her education at the
Plaza School, expressing that she did not feel behind once she entered high
school, which was integrated. At Liberty Theater, she revealed that during the
time Gordon Parks lived in Fort Scott, blacks were only allowed to sit in the
back row or on the balcony. The theater was also the location of the first
celebration’s formal dinner, where Gordon Parks was welcomed by the governor of
Kansas to the front row (fig. 5).

Eloise, who is slightly younger than
Anne, had her own set of stories to share throughout the tour. When we stopped
at what used to be the designated park for African-Americans during
segregation, she informed me that there was a photograph on one of the
timelines back at the museum of her grandmother and her girlfriend sitting on
the edge of the pool (fig. 6). Additionally, Eloise insisted that even after
segregation ended, “old Black Park” was where the African-American community
would host cookouts, parties, and family reunions under the large pavilions.
Today, the park is abandoned; all that remains is an empty field and three
picnic tables in poor shape. With public places such as the park no longer in
existence, other spaces such as the Gordon Parks Center take over allowing for
familial gatherings.

On the final day of the celebration, a
tribute luncheon was held in honor Gordon’s eldest
daughter Toni Parks-Parsons who died on August 24, 2015.
Since Toni lived in London prior to her death, the celebration was the first
time many members of the Park’s family were in the same space. Members
of the Parks family gave short speeches about Toni including her
brother David and sister Leslie,
as well as her son Alain and best friend Julie. David’s words were
poetic. Through his tears, David
admitted that he did not cry when his brother died, nor
did he cry after his father passed
in 2006. Thinking of Toni,
he said, “but women, women are a different breed of cat.” David
also announced his decision to be buried in Evergreen Cemetery alongside his
grandparents,
father, and brother,
Gordon Jr. Alain, also broke down. Jill initially tried to stop
all cameras from recording him, but Alain was not concerned about people seeing
him cry. In fact, he said “I don’t care, if you don’t cry at least once a day,
you’re not human” (Fig.7 and Fig. 8).

Though my time in Fort Scott was very
brief, I left feeling as though I had connected with people on a deeper level
than people I have known for many years. At the celebration, I thanked everyone
I met for sharing their stories with me. Without Jill or the Gordon Parks
Center, those connections would not have been formed. The celebration not only
gave me a better understanding of who Gordon Parks was as an artist, but who he
was as a human. I was moved by my interactions with the people I met and left
with the understanding that this would not be my final trip to Fort Scott, nor
would it be my last interaction with the individuals I met. As Alain said as we
were parting ways, “we are going to be friends for life”.

The
21^st Century Museum

Contemporary museums, like any other
public service institution, maintain a complex relationship with its community.
As early as 1841, museum founders such as P. T Barnum recognized that museum
success is reliant upon a degree of interaction between the visitor and
exhibition, thus leading to his desire to create a memorable experience pairing
objects on display with the false information. Barnum hoped that visitors would
notice the false information and engage in conversation with one another about
the exhibit. In 1969, an exhibition titled Harlem
on My Mind opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibit
criticized, regarded by the public as too extreme. The exhibition was not only
curated by a white male who exoticized the African American Community, it
incorporated display techniques vastly different than any other contemporary
MET exhibition; it did not connect to the rest of the museum. Additionally, the
exhibited opened too soon after the heat of the civil rights movement that dominated
the 1960’s. The public was not yet ready to talk about race.[6]
Though the museum was unsuccessful in achieving its goal of facilitating
conversation about race between museumgoers, the exhibit it displays a focus of
contemporary museums, to provide a designated space for discussing difficult
topics such as racism as a service to their public.

Additionally, contemporary American
museums provide a public service by monumentalizing important spaces within its
community. Monuments, according to Owen Dwyer and Derek Alderman, allow for
remembrance of a particular event by providing a permanent physical structure
unlike other methods commemoration such as national holidays. Street names, for
example, have become the most common method of commemorating the late Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. throughout the South.[7]Similarly
to the changing of street names, contemporary museums such as the National
Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee reclaim a specific location to
commemorating it as a place of reunion and gathering. The National Civil Rights
Museum is built around what was once the Lorraine Motel—the exact location
where Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 (Fig. 9). Inside the
appropriated hotel, walk through and witness King’s final hours on earth as the
exhibit is maintained to appear as it did during the reverend and civil rights
leader’s stay, monumentalizing his final moments. In Fort Scott, though African
American families are unable to host family reunions or gatherings at what was
once their community park, they are able to meet at the Gordon Parks
Museum/Center for Culture and Diversity. Unlike the National Civil Rights
Museum that reclaims a physical space, The Gordon Parks Center reclaims spaces
in history by assuming their role of a designated place for gathering and
reunion.

 Carol Duncan argues that, though secular
spaces, museums often function as “ceremonial monuments”, sites were society
physically represents its beliefs and history; “not just a container of
things”.[8]
Similarly to Ancient temples, museums exist within their communities to fulfill
the role of providing designated ritual space. Duncan’s approach to considering
the museum space as a center for the ritual of learning and contemplation is
connected to a history of scholarship within the social sciences, notably an
anthropological lens. Randall Collins finds that this approach often overlooks
ritual activity on a more day-to-day communication and interaction with other
humans.

Collins, finds secular rituals to be
mechanisms “of mutually focused emotion and attention that together, produce a
momentarily shared reality which generates solidarity and symbols of group
reality”.[9]
Through this lens, the ritual practice that exists within the museum space is
neither the interaction with object, nor is it learning and contemplation; it
is the situational experience of emotional group discussion communication.  Conversation is not limited strictly to
verbal discussion. Instead, varying methods of communication such as smiling,
acknowledging a familiar faces reveal different types of personal relationships
within a group. At the Gordon Parks Celebration, for example we began to have
more personal interactions and more emotional conversations with members of the
Parks family and the Fort Scott, ultimately resulting in contact with each
other outside of museum and celebration space. 
Group interaction within a confined space creates an energy that
produces a shared focus of attention in group settings, Collin argues that
verbal conversation is the most effective social interaction to effect emotion.
“Talk creates for the participants a world and reality that has other
participants in it”, which result in shared emotions, that when engaged more
than once, act to intensify “collective moments of the same
intersubjectivity”.  During my time in
Fort Scott, I encountered the same individuals on multiple occasions. Brief
encounters as well as extended conversations added up over the course of the
weekend, strengthening the connectedness between individuals in attendance
(Figure 9).

 Conversation and dialogue within the museum
space, like any ritual, requires participation, in order to create a sense of
solidarity or collective identity. Victor Turner’s theory of liminality,
suggests that rituals such as discussion, can result in a reality “betwixt-and
–between the normal, day-to-day cultural and social states”.[10]
The ritual of group discussion within the confined space of the museum, and
resulting emotional energy create a liminal reality where the museum visitor/
participants are temporarily removed from their individual identities, existing
within a shared group identity to perpetuate the solidarity and discussion of
the group. This perhaps explains why Edwin Mason’s presentation Gordon Parks and the American Dream, was
recorded to have the longest question and answer session.[11]
Mason’s discussion benefited from being the not only the final scheduled talk
of the weekend, but also only a brief fifteen minutes after the conclusion of
the tribute luncheon to Toni. The individuals created an emotional energy
allowing for a shared attention. In this instance, Gordon Parks becomes the
symbol which serves as a representation of the group solidarity, a uniting
force and face to their collective identity (fig. 10)

            The annual celebration at the Gordon
Parks Center in Fort Scott highlights the importance of human interaction
within museum space and offers a starting point in examining the museum’s
success. Contemporary museums such as the Gordon Parks maintain complex, yet
mutually beneficial relationship with its community functioning as a dialogic
meeting space. The museum benefits the community by monumentalizing important
cultural spaces and providing  
designated spaces for communal gathering. Through these interactions,
the museum’s impact on its visitors is able to expand beyond its physical
space, affecting its visitors on first an emotional then social level.