Photos in the atrium of a man with a camera give students a clue about the man for whom St. Paul’s Gordon Parks High School was named.
A new, three-week class led by Parks’ great-niece, Robin Hickman, is telling a more complete story of the Renaissance man’s life and legacy.
“I knew he was a photographer, but I never knew he was also a composer, a director and did all these amazing things. He did everything. He had so many different mediums,” said Alyssa Castillo, an 18-year-old senior who took the class at the alternative school when it first was offered last spring.
Senior Tanisha Santiago, 17, said the class gave her the confidence to share her poems with other people. She said Parks’ story showed her she has what it takes to be a poet, actor or criminal defense lawyer — maybe even all three.
“It gives students inspiration that they can do something,” she said.
St. Paul Public Schools added the class during a year of turmoil, with student assaults on school staff rising along with out-of-school suspensions. The trouble renewed calls for schools to bring in people of color from the community to set a positive example and build relationships with students in a district where 83 percent of teachers are white.
At the same time, Hickman was looking for opportunities to honor her great-uncle’s legacy.
“He was very distraught about the state of young people,” especially young black men, Hickman said, recalling a conversation with Parks shortly before his death in 2006.
“I just assured him that his legacy wouldn’t be in vain.”
Parks was born in Kansas but started his photography career in St. Paul.
He later became the first African-American to direct a major Hollywood film, “The Learning Tree,” which was based on his novel; besides directing, he wrote the film’s screenplay and music. He also directed the blaxploitation flick “Shaft.”
In the high school class, students read excerpts from Parks’ 1966 autobiography, “A Choice of Weapons,” the title of which refers to his choosing a camera over a gun in adolescence.
In an old news clip students watched during a recent class, Parks described riding with the Black Panthers for an assignment with Life magazine. A Panther asked whether he still believed what he’d written in his autobiography.
“If I get back and get this story in Life magazine, my camera has done a more powerful job than your automatic Colt .45,” Parks answered.
The class requires students to produce a personal visioning statement.
“It never fails,” Hickman said. “Students say, ‘I don’t like to write.’ But they come up with the most amazing pieces at the end of their class time.”
Patrick Massey, 17, a senior who took the class during fall semester, said it taught him about himself as well as Parks.
“It helps you understand yourself and be able to express yourself in front of other people,” he said.
Massey transferred to the alternative school after a police officer hit him with pepper spray during an altercation at Central High School. He’s now one of Hicks’ “Choice Fellows,” a group of 10 young men from the school who will work to preserve Parks’ legacy with a memorial at Landmark Plaza downtown.
Hickman’s also developing a photography class for the school’s young women.
Hickman said she used to visit the school from time to time and would ask the students what they knew about Parks.
“I’d hear, ‘I don’t know.’ Well, that just won’t do,” she said.
“I always tell the students, ‘You all are helping me keep my promise to Uncle Gordon.’”
