Thurs, Oct. 2 - Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025

“Gordon Parks Choice of Weapons Award” 2025 Recipients

Michael Cheers, Carol Friedman and Jason Miccolo Johnson will be the recipients of the “Gordon Parks Choice of Weapons Award” at the annual celebration October 2nd - 4th, 2025 in Fort Scott, Kansas. The celebration is in honor of Fort Scott native Gordon Parks, noted photographer, writer, musician, and filmmaker. The Choice of Weapons Award was established in Parks’ honor to be given annually at the celebration. More detailed information about the annual celebration events will be coming at a later date with a full press release.

D. Michael Cheers is an Associate Professor. He teaches visual journalism in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at San Jose State University. An award-winning documentary filmmaker, Cheers also teaches master photo classes in Ghana and South Africa. A National Geographic Faculty Fellow and a Fulbright Scholar, his research interests include examining the slave dungeons along Cape Coast, Ghana, digitizing the W. E. B. Du Bois photo and documents collection at the Du Bois Institute for Pan African Culture in Accra, Ghana, and researching township music in Alexandra Township,

in South Africa.

He’s the co-editor and contributing photographer to the bestselling books, Songs of My People: African Americans, A Self-Portrait and co-authored the bestseller Still Grazing: The Musical Journey of Hugh Masekela. He holds BA and MA degrees in journalism and an MS in African American Studies from Boston University. Cheers earned his PhD in African Studies and Research from Howard University, in Washington, D.C. His photographs have been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide. In 2023, a portfolio of his photographs was acquired by the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture.

Cheers began his career photographing high school sports for the St. Louis American newspaper. He then interned at the Boston Globe newspaper, before joining Jet and Ebony magazines as a photojournalist in Chicago, Washington, D.C, and later as managing editor of Ebony South Africa. He curated the Songs of My People traveling exhibition throughout the United States and abroad, before transitioning to photojournalism education in 2001. He’s taught at Auburn University and the University of Mississippi. He’s headed the photojournalism sequence at San Jose State University since 2006. Cheers most recently produced and directed the documentary I Needed Paris, Inspired by Gordon Parks.

Carol Friedman is a New York portrait photographer and filmmaker who has documented icons of the art, music and business worlds for more than three decades. Her photographs have been featured in The New Yorker, Esquire, The New York Times, Gentleman’s Quarterly, Rolling Stone, Forbes, and The London Times, and appear on numerous book covers including the memoirs and biographies of Jessye Norman, Ron Carter, Albert Murray, Randy Weston, Al Green, and Gil Evans. She is the author of The Jazz Pictures, A Moment’s Notice: Portraits of American Jazz Musicians, and the children’s book Nicky The Jazz Cat.

Renowned for her work in the music industry, Friedman’s classic portraits of singers and musicians appear on hundreds of jazz, soul, blues, and classical album and CD covers for legendary artists from Nina Simone and Quincy Jones to Yo-Yo Ma and Eric B. and Rakim. In addition to her camera work, Friedman helmed the art and design divisions of several major record labels; serving as chief photographer and art director for Blue Note Records, creative director for Elektra Entertainment, and vice-president of creative for Motown.

An avowed jazz fan, Friedman’s ongoing photography sessions with jazz legends and the innovators on the new jazz frontier bring her the most pleasure. She began photographing the jazz masters as a student, inspired by the music and her studies with Life Magazine photographer Philippe Halsman, embracing Halsman’s maxim that “a portrait is successful only if it reveals the emotional identity of your subject.”

The ever-evolving music community and Halsman’s imperative continues to inform and inspire her work. Friedman is presently photographing and designing album covers, working on several book projects, and editing The Music Is The Magic, her feature-length documentary film on the life and work of singer

Abbey Lincoln.

Jason Miccolo Johnson What do Thurgood Marshall, Oprah Winfrey, Nelson Mandela, Muhammad Ali, Iman, seven U.S. presidents, and 15 heads of state have in common? They all have been photographed by Jason Miccolo Johnson. His images have been in five Smithsonian exhibitions, 45 books, four films, a music video, and over 70 magazines. In 2006, Johnson published his first solo book, Soul Sanctuary: Images of the African American Worship Experience (foreword by Gordon Parks). Fifty of those photographs are now in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC.

Historic events shot by Johnson include the inauguration of President Obama, Million Man March, Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing, and the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. He has photographed nearly every elected Black governor and all but one elected Black U.S. Senator. Johnson was the official photographer for the 50th anniversary of N.A.T.O. and the 50th anniversaries of SNCC and UNCF

From 2015-2022, Johnson taught photography at Savannah State University. He took 15 students to cover the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. In 2002, he organized the largest gathering of professional Black photographers in history (90) to celebrate Gordon Parks on his 90th birthday. In 1997, he planned and organized the 40th anniversary of his alma mater, Carver High School in Memphis, Tennessee, the biggest event in the school’s history.

He began his professional photography career in the U.S. Navy before becoming the photo lab director at USA Today where he designed darkrooms and printed pictures at major sporting events including the 1988 Winter and Summer Olympics, 1987 World Series, 1986 Super Bowl, and 1987 and ‘88 NCAA Men’s Final Four. Johnson interned at ABC Network News, worked at The Shaw Group advertising agency in Memphis, and shot assignments for Essence, Black Enterprise, Financial World, Glamour, American Visions, Washingtonian, Ebony, and Jet magazines. Johnson is a recipient of the ArtMaker Award from the HistoryMakers, and Distinguished Alumni Award from Howard University. Since 1990, he has been the official photographer for the National Association of Black Journalists. Johnson has had solo exhibitions at the National Civil Rights Museum, Chrysler Museum, and African American Museums in Philadelphia and Detroit.

Photo Credit in Films and Documentaries: Guest Who [Columbia Pictures]; The Black Godfather: The Clarence Avant Story [Netflix]; Boss: The Black Experience in Business [WNET]; and W.E.B. DuBois: A Biography in Four Voices [The Scribe]. Johnson currently lives in Savannah, Georgia while working on his third solo book, LEGENDS of our LIFETIME: 75 Black Men Who Influenced America. For more information, visit jasonmiccolojohnson.com.