text-image-gpx

Black Muslims, 1963 - Photography Archive - The Gordon Parks Foundation

Unknown Photographer, Gordon Parks with Black Muslims, Chicago, Illinois, 1963

In the early 1960s, as the civil rights movement accelerated, Life sought to gain access to the increasingly bellicose Black Muslim movement. When several white reporters were rebuffed in their requests for an audience with the group’s leaders, Parks—the only Black member of the magazine staff—was asked to try.

His first contact was with perhaps the most renowned and tendentious member of the group, Malcolm X. After hearing a fiery speech in Harlem, Parks introduced himself, only to find that the charismatic minister already knew who he was. He invited Parks to a special meeting with Elijah Muhammad, who had been the spiritual leader of the Nation of Islam for nearly 30 years, to discuss the possibility of a story in Life. The slight and gentle-looking Muhammad asked Parks sternly: “Why does a bright young man like you work for the white devils?” Malcolm X later told Parks, grinning, “I think he likes you” (Half Past Autumn, 1997).

Muhammad ultimately agreed to the article, which became one of Parks’s groundbreaking pieces. He documented virtually every aspect of the Black Muslim community, in a full spectrum of images ranging from children and families at prayer to grown men exercising their physical strength in self-defense drills. In addition to piercing portraits of Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad, the story featured one of Parks’s masterpieces: a photograph of Muslim Sister Ethel Sharrieff in Chicago. She stares resolutely, with an almost disconcerting calm, into the camera as her sisters in a V-shaped column fall out of focus behind her. Especially impressive is the contrast between their dark skin and their white clothing and veils.

Black Muslims, 1963 - Photography Archive - The Gordon Parks Foundation

Malcolm X at Rally, Chicago, Illinois, 1963

As powerful as these images are, perhaps the most poignant aspect of the article is Parks’ disarming and personal writing, which made it clear that, for him, race relations in this country could not be so easily split between Black and white. After considering the positive and the negative aspects of the Black Muslim movement, he ends by stating plainly that although he appreciated the historical suffering that was motivating Black Muslims, he could not join their cause or support their divisive political and cultural goals.

The movement itself had difficulty following those goals. Within the year, Malcolm X was ostracized by the Nation of Islam, ostensibly for his comments about President John F. Kennedy’s assassination but also as part of a power struggle within the movement. When Malcolm then attempted to establish more mainstream religious organizations—such as Muslim Mosque, Inc.—the Nation turned on him viciously; this escalated into the eviction of his family from their home, and ultimately to his assassination, on February 21, 1965.

Gordon Parks: America is Me (Gordon Parks: A América sou eu)
Gordon Parks: America is Me (Gordon Parks: A América sou eu)
Instituto Moreira Salles, São Paulo, Brazil October 4, 2025 - March 1, 2026
Never a Lovely So Real: Photography and Film in Chicago, 1950–1980
Never a Lovely So Real: Photography and Film in Chicago, 1950–1980
Art Institute of Chicago Chicago, IL May 12 – October 28, 2018
A Choice of Weapons
A Choice of Weapons
Side Gallery Newcastle upon Tyne, UK October 21 - December 17, 2017
I Am You; Selected Works 1942-1978
I Am You; Selected Works 1942-1978
Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Frankfurt, Germany September 21, 2017 - January 7, 2018
Subjective Objective: A Century of Social Photography
Subjective Objective: A Century of Social Photography
Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University New Brunswick, NJ September 5, 2017 - January 7, 2018
Say It Loud: Art, History, Rebellion
Say It Loud: Art, History, Rebellion
Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History Detroit, MI July 23, 2017 - January 2, 2018
I Am You; Selected Works 1942-1978
I Am You; Selected Works 1942-1978
Foam Amsterdam, The Netherlands June 16 - September 6, 2017
I Use My Camera as a Weapon
I Use My Camera as a Weapon
Wroclaw Contemporary Museum, hosted by U.S. Embassy Wroclaw, Poland June 2 - August 22, 2017
I Use My Camera as a Weapon
I Use My Camera as a Weapon
Zacheta National Gallery of Art, hosted by U.S. Embassy Warsaw, Poland March 18 - May 21, 2017
I Am You; Selected Works 1942-1978
I Am You; Selected Works 1942-1978
Versicherungskammer Kulturstiftung (Foundation) Munich, Germany February 7 - May 7, 2017
Vision and Justice: The Art of Citizenship
Vision and Justice: The Art of Citizenship
Harvard Art Museums Cambridge, MA August 27, 2016 - January 8, 2017