Above from left: “American Gothic, Washington, D.C.,” 1942; “A Choice of Weapons,” 1965; Ethel Shariff in Chicago, 1963. The late, great Gordon Parks—who died in March 2006 was, among other things, a social activist artist. Setting aside his films—The Learning Tree and Shaft—his poetry, and musical compositions, Parks was a prolific recorder of history. He was pragmatic enough to know, early on, that if he wanted to...

From his experiences with the Asante royal family, a pilgrimage to Egypt’s pyramids, to the chronicling of 12 extraordinary churches in Lalibela, Ethiopia, the brilliant photojournalist, artist, and writer Chester Higgins, Jr. has graced the pages of American Legacy magazine with his images of Africa for nearly a decade. Ethiopia, it seems, is a second homeland to him, his having traveled there regularly for more than a few decades. On...