A new exhibition at Jackson Fine Art is bringing the Jim Crow South into sharp and vivid focus, using color photography to challenge how audiences understand both history and the present moment.
“Gordon Parks: The South in Color,” on view from April 2 through June 13, presents more than 30 photographs from Parks’ 1956 Life magazine series documenting segregation in the South. Organized in partnership with The Gordon Parks Foundation, the exhibition coincides with the 70th anniversary of the original publication and the foundation’s 20th anniversary.
The show features images taken in and around Mobile and Shady Grove, Alabama, where Parks photographed the daily lives of the Thornton family and their extended relatives. Using a handheld Rolleiflex camera, he created carefully composed images that highlight both the harsh realities of segregation and the dignity of everyday life.
Curated by photographer Dawoud Bey, the exhibition includes both well-known works, such as “At Segregated Drinking Fountain, Mobile, Alabama” and lesser-seen images, offering what organizers describe as a “fresh look” at Parks’ Segregation Story series and its enduring emotional weight.
Gordon Parks (1912-2006), the first African American writer for Life Magazine, used photography as a tool to confront injustice. A quote from Parks written on the walls of the exhibition hall reads: “I picked up a camera because it was my choice of weapons against what I hated most about the universe: racism, intolerance, poverty.”
That mission remains central to the exhibition’s relevance today.
Leslie Parks Bailey, Parks’ daughter, said her father’s work was rooted in both personal experience and a desire to document reality.
“Well, I think [when] he actually went down there [to Alabama]… he was kind of going home,” she said, explaining that Parks was documenting the conditions in the South, showing what life looked like for African Americans. She said the moments he captured there were both deeply troubling and, at the same time, beautiful.
The exhibition arrives at a moment of heightened political and social tension, which Bailey said makes the images especially important.
“I think that the world is in quite a bit of trouble. I think that America is in quite a bit of trouble,” she said. “I think there are a lot of people who are running this country who would like to see people of color go back to that point in time … And so it’s just important to see how far we have come, how far people want to move us back.”
She added that the photographs serve as both documentation and warning.
“There’s evidence that… people of color in this country have not been… treated equally,” she said. “And so I think that [the photos are] a reminder of that time.”
One of the defining features of the exhibition is its use of color, which contrasts with the black-and-white imagery often associated with the civil rights era.
“It [seeing the images in color]… just reminds you that they’re real-life images, right?” Bailey said. “When they’re black and white, they seem old… So when you see the pictures in color, I think it makes them a little bit more realistic… and not so far away.”
That immediacy is part of what gives the exhibition its contemporary resonance. Though the photographs were taken nearly 70 years ago, Bailey emphasized that the issues they depict remain unresolved.
“It wasn’t that long ago, she said. “It really wasn’t.”
The show also highlights the aesthetic dimension of Parks’ work, which Bailey said is sometimes overlooked.
“They’re also beautiful images,” she said. “Sometimes they’re just… beautiful pictures… beyond what they’re meant to say or portray.”
At the same time, she hopes viewers, particularly younger audiences, engage with the deeper historical context.
“I hope that… people are… walking through galleries and museums and… kind of looking at history,” she said. “I hope they’re looking at these photographs and not taking for granted the rights that they do have… and that… people are trying to strip from us and divide us.”
Ultimately, “The South in Color” functions as both an artistic achievement and a historical record, one that asks viewers to confront the past while considering the present.
As Bey wrote of Parks’ work, the photographs deserve recognition not only for their social mission but also for “the quality of their making.”
Through that dual lens, the exhibition underscores a central tension: how far the country has come and how far we still have to go.
