For “The Restraints,” Parks followed three Alabaman families during the 1950s, at what was both the height and turning point of de jure segregation in the South. Jim Crow was still firmly in place, but what Parks’ photographs evidence is the fact that around this time, it was beginning to be seriously examined and questioned. The Thorton, Causey, and Tanner families are not among the cannon figures of the Civil Rights mythos, nor will these scenes of them buying ice cream, clothes shopping, or relaxing at home likely become part of the historical narrative of the movement.

John Chiara: There came a point where he just said, “Okay, you know what to do, you just have to go out and do it. When you get the cojones, come meet with me again, and show me new work. Call me up and we’ll meet until one of us falls over and doesn’t get back up.”

OK, well, my photographs are not “morbid.” Morbid means unhealthy and deformed. I photograph social outcasts because I want to celebrate their singularity and the strength it takes for them to engage life. An example is a photograph called “Un Santo Oscuro,” a man born in Canada because his mother took thalidomide, which was banned in the United States under the Kennedy administration.