Isabel Beside Sick Father, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,

1961

<em>Life</em> magazine’s first African American staff photographer, Parks produced a series of groundbreaking photo-essays, including “Freedom’s Fearful Foe: Poverty” that appeared in the June 16, 1961, issue. The essay centered on Catacumba, one of Rio de Janeiro’s hillside slums, or favelas, and Parks, who described poverty as “the most savage of all human afflictions,” focused in particular on one individual, the twelve-year-old Flavio da Silva. The eldest of eight children, Flavio took care of his family while suffering from malnutrition and untreated asthma. Here Flavio’s three-year-old sister, Isabel, cries next to her father, José, lying in bed with back pain.