HALF PAST Autumn

If a picture can speak a thousand words, then just one of Gordon Parks' photographs spoke a legacy.

I found myself moved, stretched and filled with emotions that roiled inside of me unchecked. Witnessing the intensity of his work left me breathless. I couldn't help but be captured by the immense depravity in his pictures; the crippling effects of poverty, ignorance and racism on human life depicted in those faces continued to haunt me well after the screening was done.

GP's artful and poignant depiction of lives crippled and shattered by poverty and racism left me speechless. The pain, suffering and vulnerability of the individuals and families he photographed morphed into images of my own life in the rural South and the projects in a small southern city. It was so sad to see the families that were given money and bought new homes not be able to manage to fully rise above the strangling grip of their situation despite the "help" they received. GP summed it best when he said, "Sometimes it takes more than money." Indeed it does.

HPA was evocative, intensely emotional and powerful. This film left my emotions and my soul wretched and raw. So much so that I couldn't speak to anyone when it was over. I left, my eyes welling up as I choked back tears. When I finally made it to the ladies' room---which seemed to take a little more than forever---I broke down, sobbing silently.

I grieved for the people who had lost so much and gained so little; those whom our society rejects, scorns, ridicules and ignores. I mourned for those of us who haven't made the most of opportunities so many fought and died for by allowing them to just slip away. I wept for the ones who didn't live up to their full potential, and those, like his son, Gordon, Jr., whose time was cut short and their awesomeness glimpsed and not fully seen.

And I cried for me that I might do better and be more than I have been. That I will recognize and use my gifts and leave this world---as Mr. Parks had---more inspired.