Gordon Parks Foundation Essay Prize

The prize offers three $5,000 to $7,500 grants to both Harvard undergraduate and graduate students per academic year for essays that explore the relationship between visual art and justice as it pertains to racial equity.

Awarded for the first time on April 25th, 2019 at the Vision & Justice Convening, and initially conceptualized by Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, the prize honors the legacy of photographer and filmmaker Gordon Parks and serves to acknowledge the importance of visual literacy and the nexus of race and citizenship, particularly in the United States.  

The Gordon Parks Foundation Essay Prize is part of the foundation’s year-round educational and grant-making initiatives to support students. The jury, for which Lewis was the inaugural chair, is comprised of faculty from the following Harvard departments: History of Art and Architecture, African and African American Studies, and Visual and Environmental Studies.