The annual Gordon Parks Foundation Gala featured star-studded guests to honor modern-day civil rights icons and activists this Wednesday, May 21, at Cipriani 42nd Street.
Photographer Gordon Parks began documenting American life and culture, turning his lens to the burgeoning movements in social justice, race relations, and civil rights in the 1940s. He was hired full-time by Life magazine in 1948.
Parks became the first Black person to write and direct a major feature film in 1969 with “The Learning Tree.” A few years later, Parks again made cinematic history, along with his life-long friend actor Richard Roundtree, when he released “Shaft” in 1971.
“Gordon Parks was a legend and a social justice warrior. Tonight, all the artists and activists come together to remember him, to support the next generation of young artists who are our fellowship and scholarship students,” said Foundation Executive Director Peter W. Kunhardt Jr. His grandfather, Philip Kunhardt, co-founded the foundation with Parks in 2006 and struck up a friendship with him while they worked together at Life. “And tonight is really about looking at these great giants at the cross-sections of art, philanthropy, and athletes.”
Parks continued photographing, publishing, and composing until his death in 2006.
“[Gordon’s] camera was his weapon of choice to fight racism and poverty—he knew that art could be a powerful weapon, more potent than violence, and that through pictures and words, he could open our eyes,” Kunhardt said at the start of the festivities.
The dinner was a lavish affair that brought together some of the most prestigious and important Black talent in the worlds of photography, philanthropy, fashion, film, music, business and the arts. Celebrities, including singer and performer Usher and journalist Gayle King, owned the red carpet before the sit-down dinner and auction, which was catered in-house by Cipriani 42nd Street.
The event honored the life of Roundtree, who died last year, with tributes from actors Tim Reid and Sherry Bronfman. Roundtree’s daughter, Kelli, accepted an award on his behalf.
Ariama C. Long photos
Others honored at the event were Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of civil rights activist Medgar Evers and former chairperson of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); mixed-media artist Mickalene Thomas; athlete and activist Colin Kaepernick; and Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter Alicia Keys with her husband, Kasseem Dean (aka Swizz Beatz), who received the Patrons of the Arts Award.
“There is nowhere that we don’t belong,” said Keys in her acceptance speech.
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Keys and Dean are avid art collectors and have been longtime supporters of the foundation and Parks’s work. The couple acquired what is now the largest private holding of Parks’s images, which is a part of the Dean Collection, currently on display at the Brooklyn Museum, according to the foundation.
In accepting their award, the cultural icons also spoke about growing up in Hell’s Kitchen and the Bronx, the importance of photography and the arts, and recognizing the next generation of artists and changemakers.
“This evening is special because of who it’s named after: Gordon Parks,” said Reena Denise Evers-Everette, who accepted the award on behalf of her mother, Evers-Williams. “He was a phenomenon. Still is in the African American community, [and] worldwide. He had a special relationship with my mom, too, and I’m here to represent her because she cannot be here.
“She’s just overjoyed and so is the family. Just overjoyed with everything that is with this honor and knowing that it’s with the Gordon Parks Foundation, and what they do, and what we try to do to uplift everyone.”
Kaepernick closed out the night with an emotionally charged speech. “Nights like this also make me think about all the people who aren’t here,” he said. “All the doors, all the barriers that we still have to kick down so everybody else can come through. When we leave here today, I ask for one thing.” that all of us walk in that power. Kick those doors down.”
DJ D-Nice brought things home with a medley of lively music.
The event auction raised more than $2.3 million for the foundation with one of Parks’s auctioned works alone bringing in more than $200,000. All proceeds from the event support the foundation’s year-round fellowships, prizes, scholarships, and educational programming.
In partnership with the foundation, Steidl released an expanded edition of the 1971 book, “Gordon Parks: Born Black, A Personal Report on the Decade of Black Revolt 1960–1970,” the first book to unite Parks’s writing and photography and the first to provide a focused survey of Parks’s documentation of a crucial time for the Civil Rights and Black Power movements.
Ariama C. Long is a Report for America corps member who writes about politics for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.