People in millenniums ahead will know what we were like in the

When Gordon Parks, the visionary photographer, writer, and filmmaker, declared, “People in millenniums ahead will know what we were like in the 1930s and the thing that, the important major things that shaped our history at that time. This is as important for historic reasons as any other,” he was not simply speaking of images, but of memory itself — the sacred duty of preserving truth through the art of seeing. In his words lives a deep reverence for history, for the moments that define a generation, and for the eternal struggle to make the invisible visible. Parks, who wielded his camera like a pen, believed that to capture the face of a time was to safeguard the soul of a people.

The origin of this quote lies in Gordon Parks’ reflections on his work during the mid-twentieth century, especially his photography of poverty, racism, and the human condition in America. Born in 1912, Parks lived through the Great Depression, the racial injustice of the Jim Crow era, and the fires of the Civil Rights movement. He saw firsthand how the world of the 1930s — a world of hunger, resilience, and inequality — shaped the modern age. His camera became his voice, and through it, he documented not only the hardships of his people but also their dignity and strength. When he spoke of people “in millenniums ahead,” he was looking beyond his own time — seeing art as the bridge between past suffering and future understanding.

In this statement, Parks reminds us that photography and art are acts of historical witness. They are not mere decoration or memory, but instruments of truth. The 1930s, scarred by economic collapse and racial division, produced images of both despair and hope — the dust storms of the Great Plains, the breadlines of the unemployed, and the faces of those who refused to surrender. Parks’ own lens would later capture the struggles of African Americans with the same honesty. He understood that every photograph, every story, was a fragment of the human mosaic, and that history lives not only in books and monuments but in the captured moment — in light, shadow, and face.

To grasp his meaning, one must look at one of his most famous works — his photo essay “American Gothic,” taken in 1942. It shows Ella Watson, a Black cleaning woman in Washington, D.C., standing with a broom and mop before the American flag. The image echoes the famous painting by Grant Wood, yet transforms it into a haunting statement on hypocrisy and perseverance. Through this image, Parks wrote history without words. He revealed the contradictions of his country — liberty proclaimed, yet denied; equality promised, yet withheld. He knew that centuries later, such an image would speak more truth than a thousand speeches. This was his gospel: that art preserves what time would otherwise erase.

Parks’ words are not only about art but about legacy — the responsibility of every generation to record its story. The world of the 1930s, he said, must be remembered not because it was perfect, but because it was formative. The lessons of struggle, survival, and moral awakening born in that era still echo in our own. He believed that history, when honestly preserved, becomes both a mirror and a map: a mirror showing us who we were, and a map guiding who we might yet become. Without memory, we are doomed to drift, unanchored and unaware.

The tone of his message is not despairing but reverent. He speaks as one who knows the power of remembrance — that to remember is to resist oblivion. He warns us that the loss of history is a quiet death, the slow fading of truth into myth. “This is as important for historic reasons as any other,” he says, for the stories of the common man — the farmer, the mother, the laborer, the dreamer — are as essential as the chronicles of kings. The history of civilization is not only written by leaders but also captured by the eyes of witnesses.

So, O listener of time and keeper of stories, take this lesson to heart: record the world you live in. Write, photograph, preserve. Tell the stories of your age — its beauty, its pain, its contradictions — for one day, the future will turn to you and ask, “What were they like?” Do not let your century pass unremembered. Be as Parks was — a chronicler of truth, a guardian of humanity’s image. For though the body perishes, the image endures; though generations fade, the story remains.

And remember always: to document truth is an act of courage, and to preserve memory is an act of love. In doing so, you become part of the endless chain that binds the living to the dead, and the past to the unborn. Thus, as Gordon Parks taught, the greatest art, the greatest history, is not that which glorifies — but that which remembers.