From Fort Scott to Boston: Parks' forgotten photos on display

Friday, March 27, 2015
Submitted photo Karen Haas, curator of the Lane Collection of Photography at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, discusses the "Gordon Parks: Back to Fort Scott" photo exhibit with attendees during a presentation March 19 at the museum. Also pictured are Genevieve Young, center, executor of Parks' estate, and Peter Kunhardt, director of the Gordon Parks Foundation in New York.

Jill Warford, director of the Gordon Parks Museum/Center for Culture and Diversity at Fort Scott Community College, and local historian Arnold Schofield recently had a unique opportunity to view a collection of photographs taken by late Fort Scott native Gordon Parks.

Warford and Schofield visited the Boston Museum of Fine Arts on March 19 for the official opening of the "Gordon Parks: Back to Fort Scott" exhibit. The exhibit, which focuses on photographs of people and places Parks took decades ago, will be on display through Sept. 17 in Boston and will then travel to other sites across the U.S.

The duo made the trip at the invitation of Karen Haas, curator of the Lane Collection of Photography at the BMFA. Haas conducted research in Fort Scott in January 2014 and was a presenter at the Gordon Parks Celebration in Fort Scott in October 2014. Much of the research for Haas' project was done in Fort Scott with the help of community members and local historians.

Submitted photo Jill Warford, director of the Gordon Parks Museum/Center for Culture and Diversity, stands in front of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, where banners announce the "Gordon Park: Back to Fort Scott" photo exhibit currently on display inside the museum.

"Jill and I were thrilled to receive the invitation to attend the formal opening, reception and dinner," Schofield said. "It was the culmination of a year's research which started basically last January."

Warford said the event in Boston was attended by museum donors and staff, as well as Genevieve Young, Parks' third ex-wife and executor of his estate, and Peter Kunhardt, director of the Gordon Parks Foundation in New York. Warford said Haas had to work with both Kunhardt and Young to get their permission and help with development of Haas' project.

"That's a major art museum," Warford said in a Tribune interview. "It shows that Gordon is still very much respected and in the news. I thought it was really neat that it started in Boston."

Submitted photo Local historian Arnold Schofield stands in front of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, where banners announce the "Gordon Park: Back to Fort Scott" photo exhibit currently on display inside the museum.

Warford said Haas had a photo Parks took of a black couple standing in front of the Liberty Theater in 1950 in the Lane Collection of Photography at the BMFA. The photo piqued Haas' interest and she contacted the Gordon Parks Foundation in New York as well as Warford.

"It was the only one (photo) the Boston Museum had in their possession," Warford said. "She called to see if there were more photos in that series and yes, there were more photographs. That original photo sparked her interest in the whole story. She wanted to know the whole story behind this."

Schofield said in her research, Haas discovered that photo was part of a series of photographs taken by Parks. Haas contacted Warford and sent copies of the photos to the Gordon Parks museum. Haas and Warford stayed in contact for the project and Haas visited Fort Scott in early 2014 to glean information from area residents.

Warford said following its stay at the BMFA, the exhibit will travel across the country for exhibition in museums in Wichita and Kansas City, among other locations. She said it's unlikely the exhibit will make its way to the Gordon Parks museum on the FSCC campus.

"For us to get it, it's probably too expensive," she said. "We would need a bigger space and a space that was more secure. We don't have the resources to do that."

The exhibit focuses on photos Parks snapped in 1950 when he visited Fort Scott to find out what happened to the 11 classmates he had graduated with from the segregated Plaza School. Parks and his classmates then attended Fort Scott High School. Parks left after a year at FSHS to move to Minneapolis to live with a sister after his mother died.

"The photos themselves and the arrangement were exceptional, very nice," Schofield said. "It was a four-wall gallery, a smaller gallery within a larger one. All the Fort Scott photos are on opposite walls. The other town photos are on opposite walls. They're all Gordon's photos. And I think 99.9 percent of them have never been published."

Schofield said Parks had difficulty finding his 11 elementary classmates and in the end, only found nine friends.

"He took a series of photos in Fort Scott. He hadn't been back here for 23, 24 years," Schofield said. "These were people and places he knew, people he went to school with. Then he started to track his classmates down."

Schofield said Parks had to travel to various cities across the U.S. to locate them.

"The first impression was that all the photos were taken in Fort Scott," Schofield said. "We found out that wasn't the case. Then it was trying to find where these individuals went to."

Haas began traveling for her research to track down the classmates and she "had a good idea where some folks went," he said.

"We tracked them all down where they were living," Schofield said. "Out of 11 (classmates), only four came back to Fort Scott. Only one lived in Fort Scott her whole life."

One of Parks' former classmates, Norman Earl Collins, is buried in the Fort Scott National Cemetery, he said.

Warford said the exhibit contains "40-some photographs" but the number of photos Parks took was more in the neighborhood of 80 to 90 photographs, "and probably more than that."

"Gordon altogether took rolls and rolls of film," she said.

The story Parks did on segregated schools in 1950 was intended to be for LIFE magazine, where Parks had started working in 1948 as the magazine's first black photographer. During the Gordon Parks Celebration in Fort Scott in October 2014, Haas brought the photo collection that Parks took for the photo essay on his classmates from Fort Scott's all-black Plaza School circa 1950.

"While helping Karen Haas with her research, we slowly realized that Gordon's classmates had all left Fort Scott after graduation except one," Warford said in a news release. "So Gordon was in Fort Scott in 1950 for a few days but then left to find his other classmates in Kansas City, St. Louis, Detroit and other cities."

While in Fort Scott, Parks photographed the home he grew up in that his sister now lived in, old neighbors and friends, the downtown area and his classmate who had remained in Fort Scott, Luella Russell Hill.

"There are over 100 photographs that Gordon took while in town," Warford said in the release. "There's an Othick Park photo, the original Liberty Theatre, the Plaza School and many others. It's an amazing group of photos."

The "Back to Fort Scott" piece was supposed to run in LIFE magazine but was postponed twice. The original LIFE spread was never found, Warford said.

"The story was knocked out twice; it never did get published," she said.

"Karen Haas did a lot of digging to find the original LIFE spread that was supposed to run, but it has not been found," she added. "I still have hopes that someone will find it one of these days."

Warford said a book titled "Back to Fort Scott," which includes the photos in the exhibit plus many others, will be available for sale soon in the Gordon Parks Museum/Center for Culture and Diversity.

"It was pretty exciting to drive up to the front of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and see the banners on display in front of this huge museum," she said. "Mr. Schofield and I were very proud to represent Fort Scott at this event."

"It was an absolutely fascinating project. I enjoyed every minute of it," Schofield said. "They (museum staff) were overwhelmed at the number of people coming to see the exhibit ... it's part of his (Parks) photographic legacy."

For more information, contact the center by email at gordonparkscenter@fortscott.edu or by phone at (620) 223-2700, extension 5850.