Lawrence.com

As a youngster growing up in Independence, Kan., John Edgar Tidwell studied Kansas history and read books by America's great writers. But it wasn't until he was in his 20s that he heard about Langston Hughes, Gordon Parks and Frank Marshall Davis � three famous African-American writers who hailed from his home state.

"I grew up and knew nothing about them," said Tidwell, a Kansas University associate professor of English. "I went to Washburn University in 1964 and even then I didn't get the relationship of those writers to Kansas."

In 1981, he began working on a doctorate and was asked to contribute to the Dictionary of Literary Biography. Because the authors he wanted to write about had been taken, Tidwell decided to pick Davis, mainly because he was from Arkansas City, which is near Independence.

As he researched Davis, he learned more about Hughes and Parks and became fascinated with the kind of lives the three had in predominantly white Kansas.

His research has resulted in a class on black Kansas writers that he will teach this semester at KU; the editing of two books on Davis, "Livin' the Blues: Memoirs of a Black Journalist and Poet" and "Black Moods: Collected Poems of Frank Marshall Davis"; and "Against All Odds: Writers Growing Up Black in Kansas," a pre-Kansas Day presentation he will give Thursday at the Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vt.

Tidwell said Hughes, who lived in Lawrence as a boy, was the first African American to make a living as a writer. Hughes wrote poetry, short fiction, novels, dramas, book reviews, newspaper articles and character sketches.

"His thoughts, feelings and attitudes (represented) the wide view of African Americans and were indicative of people in general," he said. "He opens up the question of multiculturalism and what it means to be a human being."

Parks, who spent his childhood in Fort Scott, is a "modern-day Renaissance man" who is immersed in writing fiction and poetry, composing music, painting, filmmaking and photography, Tidwell said.

Parks, 89 and living in New York City, worked as a photographer for Life magazine, wrote "The Learning Tree," directed the movie "Shaft" and co-founded Essence magazine.

Davis, a contemporary of Hughes, was a journalist, poet and social critic. Unlike Hughes, Tidwell said, Davis revealed his anger over "the difference between American creed and American practice" in his writings.

Tidwell's other projects include writing a biography of poet Sterling Brown, co-editing a travelogue written by Brown and coordinating Langston Hughes poetry circles in Iola, Norton, Hays, Topeka and Independence.