Gordon Parks’s “Segregation Story” images, first published in Life magazine in 1956, are as important today as they were 60 years ago. Though the civil rights movement is most commonly associated with black-and-white photography, these images — which are part of an exhibition opening tomorrow at Weinstein Gallery in Minneapolis — were shot on color film, and connect past and present in a more immediate way. Parks brought an equally tender and frank eye to capture and honor the intimate, everyday moments of the Thornton family and their community in Shady Grove and Mobile, Ala., showing us how they managed to live “normal” lives in conditions that were anything but. Moments of happiness, love and strength, like a church gathering or a family outing to the ice cream stand, take place under codified inequality.

Parks was a close friend of the writer Ralph Ellison, and the Weinstein Gallery exhibition also comprises photos from “A Man Becomes Invisible,” a series he worked on with Ellison that debuted in 1952. Parks, a recipient of the National Medal of Arts, was a tireless advocate for social change throughout his life, and called his camera his “weapon against poverty and racism.” Revisiting his images today serves as a powerful reminder of how much progress we have yet to make.