Washington, D.C. Government charwoman
“Washington, D.C. Government charwoman”, also known as “American Gothic”, is widely considered to be Parks’s most iconic image. On his first day working for the Farm Security Administration, Parks was instructed by FSA leader Roy Stryker to go out and about in Washington, D.C. to learn the city. Parks encountered so much bigotry and discrimination that Stryker told him to find and talk with some older black people who had lived their entire lives in Washington to see how they had coped. Parks took him up on this advice and met Ella Watson, a black woman who did janitorial work in the FSA building. Though Parks later chronicled many facets of Ms. Watson’s life, this first, simple portrait went on to become the symbol of the pre-civil rights’ era treatment of minorities.Â
