Gordon Parks

"I think that the film being made there did an awful lot to dispel that. For the first time there – well, for the first time in the United States – there was a black man riding in that big crane, and h…"

"… I think maybe the rural influence in my life helped me in a sense, of knowing how to get close to people and talk to them and get my work done. That might have helped some...to try and get to know p…"

"That disadvantage sometimes pushes you, you know, if you use it right, because you want to rid yourself of those things that hurt you emotionally when you're coming up."

"No wonder you get a Rapp Brown, no wonder you get a Le Roi Jones, no wonder you get a Stokely Carmichael. But you can’t really compare these kids with me, because my time was beyond their time. Black …"

"The boys of my gang – there were six or seven of us – none of them lived to be men, to be 21 years old, except one. All of them are dead from some violence or other, shot or cut to death before they w…"