As a young person, my reading matter was very limited, back in Kansas. You went to a segregated junior high school. You didn't get much. And when you got to high school, where there was a mixture of black and white students, there was no, much encouragement from those quarters either, because there was still a great degree of separation and discrimination and bigotry.

The kids that liked one another, from both races, just liked, in spite of what the teachers and things were, pushing towards you, you know. So there were some elements of, literary elements that, if you were lucky, you picked up on.

But most of my literature came, in those early days, from the funny papers. The symphony orchestras came from the Junebugs in my father's wheat fields or corn fields. That's about the closest I got to the symphony. And all these things that came later, especially when I moved to Paris and I was exposed to fine painters, fine writers--l knew Camus--had dinner just about every Wednesday night with Edbaro Jacques Ometi, the sculptor. I met Horowitz while he was in concerts in Paris at Saint Playele. Met Rachmaninoff. I met Pablo Meruda, the poet. As I say, Camus. Richard Wright was there as well.

So I was exposed to a great, culture. All culture, you know, from music, writing, everything, painting. Alexander Calder and I were friends. So I came on that late. I think that perhaps it was almost accidental, when I was a waiter on a railway between St. Paul and Chicago and Seattle, that I just hung out at the library, no, at the Art Institute on Chicago. Simply because there was no place else to go. There I discovered some Degas, some of the great painters of the past era, and of our time as well. So I was suddenly exposed, things, I never seen this before. Never had a chance to see before. Something I was lacking in Kansas.

Tell me about meeting Richard Wright?

Richard Wright was a very powerful writer, to me. In fact, his book Twelve Million Black Voices, in which he wrote the text for the Farm Security Administration photographs, was my Bible. In 1942, it was my bible. I got to know him later, because when I was made a Rosenwahl Fellow in 1942, I was assigned to photograph, twelve Black people, important Black people, who were the subject of a book by Edwin R. Embry, who was the president of the Rosenwahl Foundation.

There was Miss Bethune, Richard Wright, Paul Robeson, people I thought, of their caliber, and I learned an awful lot, by just meeting those people and having them talk to me about certain things. And certainly Wright was one of the most powerful figures, because he was such a gentle man, but yet such a bombastic writer, he was just like a bomb bursting out of a flower.

After he went to Paris to live, and I was there, I think he missed America, he missed being here where he could exert his mind against the prejudices and the discriminations that we faced here. Because, very frankly, there wasn't enough of it in Paris.

Wright faced a very strange situation. When he came to Paris, he'd moved there because Ellen, his wife, was white. A few stones came through the window in America. The French said, "Come live with us. You don't have to put up that mess. Come to Paris." And Wright went, moved to Europe. But he, he lacked the fire and the spontaneity of addressing these problems, you know, and that's what he was all about.

I remember I called him one day and said, "Dick, I’d like to take you to lunch." He says, "OK, let me call you back in five minutes." I said, "All right." He called me back and says, "You know where I want to go?" I said, "No." He says, "You're not going to believe this." I said, "Go ahead." He said, "Maxim's," which is probably the most, the fanciest restaurant in all of Paris. And so much I'm like Richard Wright, I was thinking he was going to say the Left Bank. We were to have wine with some of his Communist friends, you know, or something like that. And we would sit, I was going to glory in this, you know, to see him talk with some of his Communist friends.

So we went to Maxim's, and while we were there, Rita Hayworth came in with Ali Khan, who she eventually married, I think. And I knew Rita, and she said, "Oh, hello, Gordon." I said, "Hi, Rita, how are you? This is Richard Wright. The Richard Wright? Oh, my God," she says.

And so, Wright says, after she left, "How does she know me?" I said, "Richard, a lot of people know you." So after we got through eating, he said, "You know, part of me didn't want to come here, but I just wanted to see what it was like. I wanted to see how the rich people lived," he said. So the bill came, and he reached for it. And I said, "No, I'm going to take care of that." And he said, Oh, I'm not going to pay it, I just wanted to see how much it cost. And he looked at the bill, he said, "I could feed my family for three weeks on this." So we went over to the Left Bank. He said, "Come on, let's go over to the Left Bank and have a bottle of cheap red wine." And that's what we did.

But he was a wonderful man. A little while after that, Richard died. He was a wonderful man.

In your photography, allowed you to know people, to see sides of them that the rest of the world couldn't, and a lot of that came through your work, your photography and correspondence.. Talk about what you saw in people like Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X.

Well, when I did a story on somebody and I work with them, I truly tried to get to the best side of them. I was not in there to defile them in any way. I didn't know too much about Malcolm when I was, when I started working with him. He would call me, "Mr. Parks." Very politely, but coldly. Mr. Parks. I would say, "Brother Malcolm. "Yes, Mr. Parks?" Went on like that for quite some time.

Until I was with him when some of the Muslims were shot up out in Los Angeles. We were on a late plane back to New York. And Elijah Muhammad had just damned him for allowing any of the men to get killed. He said, "You guys should have risen up." And Malcolm was feeling rather sheepish about that. We were on the late flight from L.A. to New York. He had just read my book Choice of Weapons, and he said, "I just read your book. Very interesting. And I'm going to re-read it." And he said, "My daughter Qubilla needs a godfather. How about it? You're elected." I said, "Fine. I'm honored." And he said, "OK, brother." And he put his head on my shoulder and went to sleep.

I woke up in New York and I let him out at his place in Harlem. And I said, "You know' Malcolm, you called me 'brother' last night for the first time, on the plane." He said, "Yeah?" He said, "Well, you deserved it for the first time." (Laughs)

Muhammad Ali was a different thing. I stayed with him in his camp when he was down in Florida, I think it was. He asked me if I'd go to London with him, a couple of times, and I went with him when he fought Cooper. And I watched for moods of Ali, that are much different from what the average photographer looked for. They all looked for the loud, showboat. I looked for his quiet moments, when he was alone, when he was by himself. And I knew the real Ali was at work with himself. You know. And I would very quietly shoot a picture. And he said to me one day, "You know," he said, "These people here in England treat me like I'm a gentleman." I said, "You are a gentleman." I said, "You know, the people in America look up to you, too, but you've got to give them a chance, Ali. You know. You've got to give them a chance to look at you differently. And you're going to make a speech tonight that's going to be beamed all over the world. Think about it, you know, before you make it, you know. Don't lash out at the world, and the world could be for you, you know." And he did, he tempered his speech that night, and he was accepted when he got back. People were endeared to him. And he always thanked me for that.

In writing The Learning Tree, What was it like for you to relive those moments and people from your childhood?

Writing any memoir is painful. It has its beautiful moments as well. But you have to go back to those days when you lost friends. I had three friends, Johnny Young, Emphy Hawkins and Barry Brady, all killed by violence. And the guys you loved. I wrote a poem about it recently. You have to write what you felt. You have to write about your early loves, your childhood loves, what happened. Like in The Learning Tree. My girlfriend is made pregnant by a White guy, a rich White guy in town, you know. Things like that. What happened to her, she goes to San Diego and loses her mind, and you reach back and say, "Hey, was all that true?" Yeah, it was true, that's where it all sprang from.

That charwoman was my very first professional photograph. But I did it with an honesty, you know. It was, the terrible bigotry of Washington hit me the first day I was there, so hard, that I wanted to react to it. I wanted to show America that, you know, what I felt of America. So I walked in and took this Black woman in this government building, put her against the American flag with a broom and mop, and said, "Here she is."

I thought the photograph had been destroyed, because of a strike or something, it was a government agency, FSA, it was an indictment for the agency. But I thought--and there were a lot of Southern congressmen, senators, that didn't want that picture in the files. I didn't realize that it was being preserved until I was on a plane years and years later, and I saw it on the front page of the Washington Post when I was on a plane coming from California to New York. I was actually shocked.

When I got to the airport, I didn't come home in New York. I took the first shuttle I could to Washington, D.C., went to the Library of Congress, had a copy made of the print and a negative made- and she's with me forever.

Now, the novel, like, that was written in all honesty, too. It was the only thing, I didn't have any other tales to tell, was not experienced in making up things. So I just wrote with an honesty. And in spite of all the other books that I've written, which is probably better-written books, The Learning Tree hangs in there as a best seller.

Why? As I know, I asked a lady today in the audience, "Why do you English teachers and librarians love that book so much?" And they just love it. It's in its, going on sixtieth printing since 1962. And they say, it'll never go out, because we're going to keep preaching. And I said, "Well, why do you do it?" He said, "Because it's so well-balanced."

I think that The Learning Tree, when I look at it in retrospect, I realize that some of them Black people were good, some of them were bad. Some of the White people were good, some of them were bad. So you have these two elements of reality being threaded together by a wonderful, lovely woman who was my mother, who was just above all of it, you know. She was a fantastic woman, you know. And she threaded it together for us, her spirit.

And that's why the book lives, and, and as I say, it's in about 12 languages, and I get letters from all over the world about it.

It means a lot to me, especially a book called A Choice--the book called A Choice of Weapons. It, that the kids have an out. That if you want to really go for it, you can go for it. You don't need the gun or the knife to do it. You can do it with your pen or your computer. You can do it with a paintbrush, and so forth. You can be heard, and heard a lot longer and a-lot stronger, if you use the right weapons. And those are the weapons that I have chosen.

That book, I'm especially proud of the reaction that I get from it. And the books you write, you know, like, I wrote a novel called Shannon, and another book called Moments Without Proper Names, and things of that sort, you, you write that from the gleanings of experience through a lifetime, you know. And I've had a long lifetime, which I'm very happy for.

l think people understand poetry, if you feed it to them right. I think, I haven't through my own experience, some of the more abstract poets, I found, when I was younger, I found them difficult to understand. My favorite poet is Pablo Meruda. I met him in Rome many years ago. Pablo--becomes involved with abstraction too, but he's always down to earth. He tells it like it is, you know, and that's why I love him. And I don't-if I'm going to write a novel, I spend three weeks reading Pablo Meruda.

Or some other poet that I like very much. I like some, several South American poets, too. And, I don't know, they have, they say something to me. And read them just to get rhythm. I like the rhythm. And that's what I'm after when I write the novel. So I can eliminate all the "ahs, "ands, "buts, " you know. (Snaps fingers) Right to the point, you know what I mean. (Snap) Say what you want to say, (snap) say it clearly.

As long as you know what you've said and you've said it the way you want to say it, that's the end thing about poetry. And I say again, if I had my druthers and I could only be allowed to do two things, I would probably just compose music, serious music, and write poetry.

I make more money off of doing a movie, of course. Doing this, photography, I make more money. You make less money off of a poetry book, you make less money doing music. But you, your soul's there. You're communicating with the rest of the world. Nobody's telling you how to do it. You're doing it.

And it's glorious, at 3:00 in the morning, when you can sit down and write a poem, or quietly compose a piece of music that you love.

I write for all children. I don't write only for my children, I write for all.

Yeah, I got to tell you the truth, now, if you want me to tell you the honest-to-God truth, which I would, I've never probably admitted before--you know, I'm a little astounded at the number of people who write me. Right now, in my home in New York, there's gotta be three to four hundred letters. It's impossible for me to answer. Just can't answer the letters, as much as I want to.

"Parade" magazine just did a story on me. Well, I didn't realize "Parade" magazine reached so many people. But I've gotten at least 80 or 90 letters, just from the "Parade" article. Even a guy in the south of France wrote me. I had another guy from London call. And then the schoolkids write, and they want to know individual things.

They say, "I want to, I'm going to become a filmmaker," or "I'm going to become a composer, I'm going to be a writer. "So I have to answer each individually. And that takes a lot of time. Means I got to sit down at the computer, answer, as I did recently, 90 letters. Because you’ve got to help all those kids, they want to write you back!

I had no idea that I was going to become a photographer or a writer or a composer, you know, or a poet, or anything of that sort. All I was trying to do was survive, stay alive. That it happened, I'm grateful, I’m still a little surprised that it's been so successful.

I'm surprised when I get a note from my publishers, The Learning Tree, to show how that book is still selling, you know. Or how another book has been selling, or that The Learning Tree has been voted one of the most important films in the history of film, by the Library of Congress.

I don't feel old. I still think of myself as a young man like you. That I can hand-wrestle you, that I can ski better than you, I bet. That I can probably beat you on a tennis court. (Laughs) You know? That's what keeps me going. You know.

Some people don't accept age gracefully. I don't accept age at all. To tell you the truth. I'm just finding out this myself, as I'm talking to you, I don't accept age at all. I'm just here. Some mornings I wake up feeling like 21.

Well, I hope it’s something young people in the urban areas, no matter what color they are, look up to. So they can come to me if they need to, lean on me. I have kids calling me in New York saying, "Look, I just, give me, just give me 15 minutes." I say, "Well, OK, I'll give you 15 minutes, and I wind up giving them three hours.

My mother and father were my heroes. People ask me, who are your heroes? My mother and father were my heroes. I can't think of anybody in the world who did more for me than they did. And my mother, before she died--and I was only about 14--she knew she was dying, she knew I was the youngest of 15. She knew the others had been meted out into the world, and they knew a little bit about this, some of them were married.

But she knew that I, at 14, was gonna need an awful lot. And she knew that my father didn't have the kind of strength to hold that family together and look after me. That's why she wanted me sent to Minnesota immediately after she was buried. And my father came to me, and I was in a taxicab, ready to go to--Dan Stover's taxicab, I'll never forget. My sister had come from Minnesota to pick me up. And my father just sort of touched me, had a corncob pipe in his mouth, and said, "Well, boy, follow your mama's teachings and you'll be all right." Then he went off to feed the hogs, and I went to the train. It was just that simple.

My father was an incredible man. He did something once that I'll never forget.

I was playing, shooting marbles with a friend in the, in my front yard. He came in out of the fields and says, "Boy, when your mama comes home, tell her I'm up at Mercy Hospital." I said, "OK, Papa," and I went on shooting marbles with my friend, Elmer Kiner. My mother came home, and I said, "Mama, Papa said he's at the Mercy Hospital." "Well, what's he doing up there?" I said, "I don't know." She got nervous, she said, "Come on, we're going up there. With her long skirts dragging, we go to the hospital, which is about a block and a half up the hill.

She goes in, the lady attendant says, "Yes, who are you?" Says, "I'm Sarah Parks. My husband is here. "Oh, let's see. Yes, he is here." "Well, what's he here for? Well, he's in Emergency." Emergency? What's he doing in the Emergency?"

"Well, Mrs. Parks, just calm down." And she says, "The little Savage girl, little Black girl, her name is Ethonia Savage, was burned badly all over her body. And they put a call out for people to give skin. Nobody answered but your husband. And he came up here, and we've had all the skin taken off of his back. and off the backs of his legs, and his fronts of his thighs, to put on the little Savage girl."

"Oh, my God." So she said to him, went in, said, "Jackson, why didn't you tell me?" He said, "Oh, Sarah, you would have said yes, do it." So I asked my father when he came to Minnesota years later, I said, "Papa, did the Savages ever come to the hospital while you were there, bring you flowers or to thank you for what you did?" He looked at me as though he was insulted. He said, "I didn't do it for flowers. I didn't do it for thanks. I did it for little Ethonia Savage. The girl who needed skin ."

I felt ashamed about asking. I felt I'd insulted him. But that's the kind of man he was. Now, I couldn't have given all the skin off my back, and very few people could.

But that's, those are the kind of parents that, that I was brought up with. And every what I amounted to, they made me that. And I'm thankful for them. That's why I say they're my heroes. I don't know of anybody else in the world that I know who would do what my dad did. Or what my mother did at times, you know. Like, she got up in court when three guys was going to be sent to prison for beating me up. She said, 'No, let me mete out their sentence." And she sent them to prayer meetings for a year. You know what I mean. But those were...

I do think sometimes that, well, my brothers, my brothers and sisters tell me that one of my brothers called me Pedro before he died. They're all dead now, I'm the only one left. "Pedro, Mama and Papa look after you. They know what you're doing. Don't worry about it." And when my sister Gladys died, here in St. Paul a few years ago--l rushed back from Chicago when I heard she was dying--she was smiling when I went in. She only had a few minutes to live.

And she said, "What is tears doing in your eyes?" She was smiling. I said, "Well, I don't know." She says, "Look, I'm going to see Mama and Papa. I'm going to tell them all about you. Tell them what you're doing." And she was smiling. That's the way she died. Now you've got to have had some great parents to die like that.