“My mother had freed me from the curse of inferiority long before she had died by not letting me take refuge in the excuse that I had been born black. She had given me ambition and purpose, and set the course I had since traveled … I didn’t know what lay ahead of me, but I believed in myself. My deepest instincts told me I would not perish. Poverty and bigotry would still be around but at last I could fight them on even terms. The important thing was the choice of weapons with which to fight them most effectively.” —Gordon Parks, A Choice of Weapons
Photo Credit: Photographer Unknown. Photographs & Prints Division , Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
