Overview
- The Gordon Parks Foundation’s 20th‑anniversary gala, held May 19 at Cipriani in Midtown Manhattan, raised $3 million through its dinner and auction to fund the foundation’s arts and social‑justice work.
- Honorees included Chance the Rapper, John Legend, Elizabeth Alexander, Henry Taylor, and Lonnie Ali, and Chance closed part of the program with a tribute to Muhammad Ali performing “I Was a Rock” with the Anthony Morgan Inspirational Choir of Harlem.
- Coverage reported that Chance purchased a reprint of Parks’s 1956 photograph “At Segregated Drinking Fountain, Mobile, Alabama” for $150,000 at the auction, a detail attributed to a single outlet and described in reporting as a reported auction result.
- The event gathered cultural leaders and activists, with Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz serving as co‑chairs and presenters including Colin Kaepernick and Pharrell, highlighting the foundation’s crossover between the arts, philanthropy, and activism.
- Founded after Parks’s death to steward his archive, the foundation has expanded fellowships since 2017 and added a music award this year, and the gala proceeds are intended to sustain those fellowships, scholarships, and programs that link art to social justice.