At the heart of Gordon Parks's documentation of African American life was capturing a sense of community, through struggles and triumphs. Parks keenly understood the role of the church within those communities—as evidenced by their presence throughout Parks's work of the 1940s through 1960s. One of Parks’s earliest assignments for Life magazine, however, had a church as its focus: In 1953 Life sent Parks to Chicago to do a story on the Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church, located at 2151 West Washington Boulevard on the city’s Near West Side.

The story was intended to be a part of a focused series on religion for the magazine. Chicago, with its promise of industrial employment, became a major destination for African Americans fleeing the rural South during the decades of the Great Migration (1915–70). During and in the years that followed the Great Migration, Black churches proliferated in the city—many of them occupying storefront and other former commercial spaces. Across the city’s South and West Sides, these religious spaces were deeply connected to and reflective of their communities.

Parks had known these communities well: In 1941, Parks moved to Chicago, where he set up a portrait studio and darkroom in the city's South Side Community Art Center. While there, he met several artists—Charles White among them—who encouraged him to begin photographing what he saw and experienced in Chicago’s neighborhoods. Despite his lack of professional training, In 1942, he was awarded a Rosenwald Fellowship for a portfolio of photographs he created on the South Side; the award gave him the means to move east to Washington, D.C. By 1948 Life magazine hired him as its first African American staff photographer—He would return to Chicago twice on assignment for the magazine, in 1953 for the story on the Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church, and again in 1963 for a story on the Nation of Islam, newly headquartered in the city.

The Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church, built in 1901, was designed by architect Hugh M. G. Garden. Originally built as the Third Church of Christ, Scientist, the building’s design combined classical and modern elements—notably Garden’s distinctive ornament, known as “Gardenesque”— were intended to reflect the then-new Christian Science religious movement. The building was sold to the Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church in 1947, and designated a Chicago Landmark in 1989. In 1953, when Parks was sent to Chicago to photograph the church and its community, the main draw its pastor, the celebrated Reverend Ernest Franklin Ledbetter, known for “Moderate Shouting" and spirited services. The Pastor was also deeply admired for the time he spent in and among his community, providing them with much-needed support and service.

Life magazine sent Parks and a white reporter to Chicago to do the story. However, as Parks later recalled, the reporter made the mistake of keeping his hat on as he entered the church. The deacons viewed this gesture, in Parks’s words, as “another case of the white man’s disrespect” and asked Parks to continue alone. As a result, Parks was on record as both the photographer and the writer for the story—his first writing assignment for the magazine, and an unusual role for any magazine photographer at the time. As with many of his assignments, Parks spent time getting to know his subjects. The resulting images— ranging from images of impassioned services to the Pastor’s daily service activities—stand out for their intimacy, sensitivity, and empathy.

The magazine ultimately did not run the feature, but the unpublished eight-page manuscript Parks wrote survives. In it, he goes into great detail about the Pastor’s relationship to and activities within the community. Most poignant, however, is Parks’s description of the Church’s role within the community, which underscores the humanitarian approach to his subjects that has remained a hallmark of his career: