REEL History: The Learning Tree (1963)

The Learning Tree is based on Gordon Parks’ 1963 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. Partnership with the Albin Polasek Museum and Sculpture Gardens. 

Gordon Parks was a modern-day Renaissance man whose creative practice extended beyond photography to encompass fiction and nonfiction writing, musical composition, filmmaking, and painting. In 1969, he became the first African American to write and direct a major Hollywood studio feature film, The Learning Tree, based on his bestselling semiautobiographical novel.

His next film, Shaft (1971), was a critical and box-office success, inspiring several sequels. Parks published many books, including memoirs, novels, poetry, and volumes on photographic technique.

In 1989, he produced, directed, and composed the music for a ballet, Martin, dedicated to the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.