Organize students into small discussion groups.

Have students discuss these prompts and be prepared to share out to the class:

*What is your definition of social justice?

*How can photography and visual art be used as a tool to advance social justice? 

*What is a recent image or piece of art you saw seeking to advance social justice? 

Have groups share a summary of their discussion and cite the images they identified. 

Watch Film Clip 1: Framing the Importance of Narrative Work (2:30)
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In this clip, Bryan Stevenson offers an explanation of the power of changing the cultural narrative and using narrative tools as an effective way to fight against injustice. Through storytelling, Stevenson believes, “Gordon Parks was able to change hearts and minds.”

Distribute Handout 1: Quotes

*Choose one quote that you feel best reflects your point of view. 

*Pair/share and discuss your understanding of this quote’s meaning and why you selected it. 

Background: In the summer of 1956, Life sent photographer Gordon Parks and writer Robert Wallace to Alabama to gather material for a series on segregation. As with many of his photo essays, Parks sought to tell the story through the experience of one family. In this instance it was Mr. and Mrs. Thornton of Mobile, Alabama, who had nine children and nineteen grandchildren. The finished work, “The Restraints: Open and Hidden” was published on September 24, 1956. Parks and Wallace, both Black men, took considerable personal risk to create this essay as did the entire Thornton family. Life originally published twenty-six photographs, and several were exhibited in Parks’ lifetime. It wasn’t until 2011, five years after his death, that the bulk of his photographs for this assignment were discovered. Today these images are some of Gordon Parks’ most memorable and provocative photographs.

Watch Film Clip 2: Photographs from Alabama (5:06)
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In this clip we learn about the context of Parks’ 1956 photo essay “The Restraints: Open and Hidden,” on the lives of Black Americans in Alabama. He created it for Life magazine soon after the murder of Emmett Till.

Teacher Note: Students will practice critical media analysis skills—a process of engaging with media through an analysis of representations, systems, structures, ideologies, and power dynamics that shape culture. Students will view, discuss, and analyze a selection of Parks’ photographs published in Life magazine in 1956, and photographs from the same series but only discovered five years after his death in 2011. Students will engage with the images on their own before discussing their interpretations in small groups. 

Distribute Handout 2: Critical Media Literacy Framework
Review the Critical Media Literacy Framework in Handout 2 with students and clarify any questions. Explain that for this exercise, the term “text” is defined broadly to include individual photographs, photo essays, and the captions created for the publication.

“The Restraints: Open and Hidden” (1956) 
Next, have students go online to access the archived Life magazine essay “The Restraints: Open and Hidden” here, pages 98–109. Students should view the images selected, read the captions, and enlarge the magazine to read the article. Note: This essay was the fourth installment of a four-part series on segregation in the magazine. 

Discuss: “The Restraints: Open and Hidden” series 

*How do you interpret the title of this photo essay “The Restraints: Open and Hidden”?

*How does Gordon Parks’s decision to shoot in color present the experience of race in America differently than it would be in black and white? How and why?

*What narrative(s) about Black life in America is being told in this essay?

*Does Gordon Parks’s identity as a Black photographer offer an insider point of view in this series? Why is this important to acknowledge?

*Considering the title of the essay, the photographs, and their captions, what is Parks communicating about racism in America?

*What role does art play in making visible experiences such as racism in America that Parks references?

Watch Interview Thread: Mr. and Mrs. Thornton (2:30 mins) 
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*Project or direct student’s attention to one photograph in the magazine titled “Mr. and Mrs Albert Thornton.”

*Watch and listen to Maurice Berger expanding on the significance of the Mr. & Mrs. Thornton photograph (2:30 mins)

Transition from “The Restraints: Open and Hidden” discussion and share with students this remarkable story: In 2012 The Gordon Parks Foundation discovered a duct-taped box at the bottom of another box in their archives. Inside were slides from “The Restraints: Open and Hidden” assignment that up until then, had not been made public. 

Have students read a more in depth background on this collection from The Gordon Parks Foundation website on this collection that is now titled “Segregation in the South, 1956.”

After reading, have students focus their attention on six images from this work using the critical media literacy questions in Handout 2.

Teacher Note: The filmmakers conducted numerous interviews to produce A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks. The full interviews are accessible in the Interview Archive. A selection of these interviews, edited and curated together here to create interview threads, are available to deepen students’ learning and provide access to new scholarship. 

Watch Interview Thread: Segregation Story (20 min)
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Watch and listen to Maurice Berger, Bryan Stevenson, and Khalil Muhhamad expand upon the work of Gordon Parks and this photo essay.

Read this reflection from Devin Allen as an introduction to his work. 

“I took pictures of everything. I didn’t understand how important it was. I just looked at it like it was just making art, something that brings me joy, something that helps me deal with my social anxiety and depression from all of the things that I’ve been through. So it started off as just a personal journey, you know, trying to understand who I am, digesting my community, my own trauma, but you know as I got deep into my career I was asked to document a protest. I never understood the power [of photography] until I was able to document a protest and document peers, people [who] passed away.…  I was able to tell these stories and that’s when I really started realizing how powerful an image can be. You know it can make or break a person. It can change a person’s life or it can destroy that person’s life but at the same time, you’re locking in history and you become a part of it. And that’s when I really started to realize how important my imagery was to my city. I fell in love with just being in the moment. You know when I’m doing street photography, it’s just me, my camera, and the world.” 

Watch Film Clip 3: Devin Allen (3:08)
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In this clip we meet Devin Allen, a photographer living and working in Baltimore, who shares how Gordon Parks inspired him in his current work and how he came to embrace the idea that his camera can be used as a weapon for social justice and political change. 

Small Group Discussion: The Camera as a Weapon

*How do you understand Devin Allen’s relationship with photography?

*How does he use the camera as a weapon?

Sample Educator Script

“Devin Allen, LaToya Ruby Frazier, and Jamel Shabazz all reference how Gordon Parks showed them the power of the camera as a tool and a weapon to document injustices and make visible issues and individuals that are ignored, neglected, or intentionally silenced.

Look around your community, your school, or beyond to identify an issue you care about. Find a way to tell a story about this issue using your camera. Your subject doesn’t have to be as large as a Black Lives Matter protest or as severe as lead poisoning. It just needs to be an issue that matters to you that you can convey through your own visual images. 

When you have finished the photography assignment, take a moment to write an artist statement on your process. An artist statement helps the audience understand your artistic process and vision. It is written in the first person and can include key ideas, inspiration, resources, goals, challenges, or other insights you want to share. An artist statement is usually brief and concise, generally a short paragraph.

Here are a few ideas and questions to consider with this artist statement:

*How did you decide which issue to photograph?

*What did you want to communicate to the world about this issue through your photographs?

*What do you hope audiences see in your photographs?

*Is there something you hope your audience will do as a result?"

To request the full film for an educational screening, visit this page