KU News Release

KU professor publishes three books on African-American writers and their craft

LAWRENCE — For a University of Kansas professor who has dedicated his career to African-American literature, 2006-07 was a banner academic year.

John Edgar Tidwell, associate professor of English at KU, has published three books this year on prominent African-American writers and the experiences that helped shape their crafts.

Tidwell edited and contributed to books on Lawrence native and world-renowned poet Langston Hughes, acclaimed journalist and Kansan Frank Marshall Davis and African-American literary and cultural figure Sterling A. Brown.

“Montage of a Dream: The Art and Life of Langston Hughes” is a comprehensive reassessment of the writer who spent his early years in Lawrence before becoming a nationally prominent poet, most closely associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Tidwell co-edited and contributed an essay to the book, which is the first reassessment of Hughes since 1971. His essay “The Sounds of Silence: Langston Hughes as a ‘Down Low’ Brother?” addresses the often contentious topic of Hughes’ sexual orientation.

“Writings of Frank Marshall Davis: A Voice of the Black Press” is Tidwell’s third on Davis, an Arkansas City native. The book is an exploration of Davis’ more than 30 years as a journalist. He wrote columns on the history of blues and jazz, book reviews, a World War II series titled “Passing Parade” and “Democracy: Hawaiian Style,” a column about his observations of Hawaiian life and culture, written after he moved to the Hawaiian territory in 1948.

Tidwell previously published “Livin’ the Blues,” Davis’ memoirs and “Black Moods: Collected Poems.” Together, the three books provide a multifaceted view of Davis’ engagement with political and cultural issues African-Americans and the whole nation faced in the middle decades of the 20th century.

“A Negro Looks at the South” is Tidwell’s third book of the year. Co-edited with Mark Sanders, a professor at Emory University, the book is a collection of unpublished observations left behind by the late Sterling A. Brown. In the 1940s, Brown researched and wrote about experiences of African-Americans in the South. He was particularly interested in documenting the responses they made to life under racial segregation or Jim Crow. The written accounts of his observations and formal research were preserved in the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University, where Brown taught for more than 40 years.

The three books were feted at a recent ceremony at KU’s Spencer Research Library. Chancellor Robert Hemenway, who attended the ceremony, has lauded Tidwell’s work.

“These three books will stand as invaluable contributions to the body of work on some of America’s most important writers and cultural figures. I commend John Edgar Tidwell on his accomplishment and thank him for all he has done for KU and his students,” Hemenway said.

With Steven Tracy, a professor of University of Massachusetts, Tidwell is currently assembling “After Winter: Essays on the Art and Life of Sterling A. Brown.” He also continues work on “Oh Didn’t He Ramble: The Life of Sterling A. Brown,” the first biographical study of Brown’s career as a teacher, poet, literary historian, anthologist, folklorist and raconteur.

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