Muslim Rally 1963

Gordon Parks made this photograph, Muslim Rally, with a camera, sometime during his career. I feel like I can almost hear what’s going on, imagine what it must have been like to be in that crowd, the air thick with anticipation and maybe a little bit of apprehension. I'm thinking about Parks, holding his camera, trying to capture the essence of the moment, the energy of the crowd. The hand reaching up, fingers spread, becomes a symbol, right? Of unity, of solidarity. It’s like a painter making marks on a canvas – each gesture loaded with intention and meaning. Parks, like a lot of artists, was working with a limited palette, black and white, but within those constraints, there’s so much nuance, so much emotion. He's showing us how the personal and the political can intertwine, inviting us to reflect on our own place in the world. We’re all in this conversation together, bouncing ideas off each other across time and space.