"By the time I went to college in the late sixties, Parks was an international celebrity. Everyone knew his work, his name, his elegant style. He was a veritable Jackie Robinson of the creative arts, a towering inspiration. Everyone in my generation grew up with his photos in Life magazine. And every African-American knew that one of Life's staff photographers was a black man. It was quite difficult for me to believe, growing up in a segregated neighborhood in a small town in West Virginia, that the man who was taking these photographs in Life was a black man, thriving as an artist on the staff of the most important repository of photojournalism in American society in the fifties and sixties." Excerpt of essay by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. This five-volume collection surveys five decades of Gordon Parks' photography. It is the most extensive publication to document his legendary career. Widely recognized as the most important and influential African-American photographer of the twentieth century, Parks combined a unique documentary and artistic style with a profound commitment to social justice. Published by Steidl Edited by Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr. and Paul Roth. Text by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Deborah Willis, Maurice Berger, Barbara Baker Burrows, Paul Roth, and Gordon Parks.