The Fontenelle family at the Poverty Board, Harlem, New York in 1967. Life magazine had sent three photographers to document the living conditions of black people living in the ghettos of America. Gordon Parks chose Harlem. The photos he took were shocking.

Bessie Fontenelle was struggling to feed her nine children who were so hungry that one of them kept eating the plaster which had fallen from the walls. Her husband was a drunk who beat her and the children regularly and spent what little money they had on alcohol.

Bessie and Little Richard the Morning After She Scalded Her Husband, Harlem, New York, 1967 by Gordon Parks.

The cover photograph for that issue of Life was a remarkable photo of little five-year-old Ellen Fontenelle just as a tear was forming on her cheek. It shows just how close Parks got to the family as he documented the desperation of their lives.

When they were published Parks’ photos triggered outrage and an outpouring of sympathy and donations for the family. So much was donated that Parks was able to buy a house for them in Long Island. They had escaped the poverty but not for long.

Only three months after moving into their new house with new furniture Norman Fontenelle (pictured here in Harlem) came home drunk and dropped a cigarette on the sofa. The house burned down killing him and his son Kenneth.

Bessie, now a single parent with eight children, returned to poverty in Harlem. Parks visited her some years later to find the family had fallen apart. Two sons were in prison, one for selling drugs, another for stealing; three of her teenage daughters were ‘on the streets’.

Parks (showing his camera to the family in 1968) wrote this powerful introduction to the story.
“We are not so far apart as it might seem. There is something about both of us that goes deeper than blood or black and white. It is our common search for a better life, a better...”

“world. I march now over the same ground you once marched. I fight for the same things you still fight for. My children’s needs are the same as your children’s. I too am America. America is me. It gave me the only life I know—so I must share in its survival. Look at me. Listen..”

“to me. Try to understand my struggle against your racism. There is yet a chance for us to live in peace beneath these restless skies.”

Parks attended Bessie’s funeral in 1992 along with four of her children, two of whom died soon after of AIDS. Norman junior also died soon after in prison mourning the loss of his mother.

It is a tragic illustration of a family caught up in a cycle of poverty & self destruction showing us that philanthropy is not the answer, what is needed is a fundamental change to remove systemic disadvantages for people in this situation and that can only come through politics.