Fort Scott Community College, Fort Scott, KS
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Hughes-Parks Traveling Exhibit Display
A panel-display exhibit featuring the collaborations and connections between Gordon Parks and Langston Hughes is now available for free temporary loan-out to educational entities and organizations across the state of Kansas.
The display is also available for educational entities and organizations that are are located outside the state of Kansas for a small fee of $150 (for up to 12 weeks). Additional fees may apply for delivery, set-up, shipping, etc.
Titled “Harlem Renaissance and the Renaissance Man,” the display highlights and explores the history, journey and friendship of the two men, one a poet (Hughes) and the other a photographer (Parks), and their impact on the arts.
The museum has four identical versions of the panel display ready to travel to schools, colleges, universities, libraries, etc. The displays were made possible through an award grant with Humanities Kansas and support by Kansas Tourism.
The exhibit display creates a great opportunity in helping to keep both of the legacies and triumphs of Langston Hughes and Gordon Parks alive.
The panels are 36-inches-by-91-inches and include graphics, photos and text information and a QR code. They come with a carrying case with wheels that can easily be moved for display at varying locations. There is no charge for renting the displays for locations in the state of Kansas, but certain fees might apply for delivery, set-up, shipping, etc.
For more information about having one of the panels on display at your location, contact the museum by phone at (620) 223-2700, ext. 5850, or by email at gordonparkscenter@fortscott.edu.
Langston Hughes and Gordon Parks
The Harlem Renaissance
and the Renaissance Man
Langston Hughes
African-American poet, novelist, and playwright who became one of the foremost interpreters of racial relations in the United States from the 1920s through the 1960s. Hughes had one of the leading voices in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Hughes published more than 35 books, and his influence is seen in the writings of authors from his generation to the present.
Langston Hughes Cultural Society
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100067760151855
Black History Heritage Trail Stop
Birthplace of Langston Hughes
1046 Joplin Avenue, Joplin, MO.
James Mercer Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri on February 1, 1901. According the Jopling Globe Newspaper, he was born in a house at 1046 Joplin Avenue. The house was owned by a white man named Edward Miller, and he and his family lived there. 1900 U.S. Federal census also shows Mary Langston, Langston Hughes grandmother, living there and working as a domestic for the Miller Family.
Mary Livingston owned a home at 732 Alabama Street in Lawrence, Kansas which she rented out while she was living and working in the Miller home. In the summer of 1900 her daughter, Carrie Hughes was pregnant with her second son. Carries first baby boy died in February, and Mary Langston wanted to be closed to her daughter during the her grief and to help with the birth of the new baby. Although Carrie and her husband James rented a house on Missouri Avenue, its believed that James Hughes was in Guthrie, Oklahoma at the time of Langston's birth. Having already lost one baby, Langston Hughes in the home where her mother was living at 1046 Joplin Avenue.
Years later, the houses around Edward Millers house were soled to developer and warehouses were built on either side of the Miller house. But Edward Miller's oldest son, Otto, continued to live in the house and refused to sell it. We he died in 1951, the house was torn down and a vacant lot was left.
Langston was raised mainly in Lawrence, Kansas by his grandmother, Mary Langston. He lived most of his childhood in Lawrence.
Langston Hughes Birthplace Information and Photo is Courtesy of the Langston Hughes Cultural Society in Joplin, MO
Listen to the Langston Hughes Speech below that he gave at Kansas University
Audio Credit “Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas.”
Hughes Lawrence, KS, Photo Credit “Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas.”
Carl Van Vechten Papers Relating to African American Arts and Letters. James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book, and Manuscript Library, and ©Van Vechten Trust.
Hughes, Photo Credit “Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas.”
Hughes Postcard 1048 Photo Credit: “Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas.”
Hughes, Photo Credit “Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas.”
Gordon Parks
Courtesy of the Fort Scott Genealogy Society
Gordon Parks was internationally known Photographer, filmmaker, musician and writer. He was the first African American photojournalist for Life Magazine. He wrote a semi autobiography about his life growing up in Fort Scott, KS and subsequent film, The Learning Tree. He has authored over 20 books and directed over 10 films. He wrote original music compositions, film scores, and ballet. Gordon Parks lived a life of overcoming barriers and achieving outstanding success both artistically and professionally.
More information visit The Gordon Parks Museum website at https://www.gordonparkscenter.org/
Cecil Newman - Mutual Friend/Aquantance
Courtesy of the Minneapolis Historical Society. For more information about Cecil Newman visit the Minneapolis Historical Society website at https://www.mnopedia.org/person/newman-cecil-1903-1976
Cecil Newman, Founder and Editor of the Minneapolis Spokesman Newspaper was a childhood classmate and playmate and also close neighbor of Langston Hughes when living in Kansas City. Cecil Newman was also Gordon Parks supervisor as a photographer for the Spokesman Newspaper 1938-1940.
Cecil Newman was a pioneering newspaper publisher and an influential leader in Minnesota. His newspapers, the Minneapolis Spokesman and the St. Paul Recorder, provided news and information to readers while advancing civil rights, fair employment, political engagement, and Black pride.
Cecil Earl Newman was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1903. He transcended the limits of segregated education, becoming the editor of his school paper. As a teen, he delivered African American newspapers as he hoped for a future in the publishing business.
Courtesy of the Minneapolis Historical Society. For more information about Cecil Newman visit the Minneapolis Historical Society website at https://www.mnopedia.org/person/newman-cecil-1903-1976
Cecil Newman, ca, 1965. Photograph Rohn Ergh
Cecil Newman with members of his Family and Karl Rolvaag. Photo take by Carl McGee and photo probably dates back to Rolvaag's term in office as the 31st Governor of Minnesota (1963 -1967)
Harold W. Greenwood and Cecil Newman, Photograph by Norton and Peel, ca 1960
"Aunt" Ethel (Toy) Harper- Langston's (Family Friend) And Fort Scott, KS Connection
Langston Hughes first met “Ethel Toy Harper,” a friend of his mother Carrie in the 1930’s Harlem. Toy Harper became Langston’s forever Aunt, together they owned the Langston Hughes House in Harlem. A very beautiful place to live. Ethel Toy Harper
performed in a musical at the Shiloh Baptist Church in Fort Scott, KS at 3 years old in 1890.
Langston Hughes Cultural Society Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100067760151855
This is a beautiful story from the Pittsburgh Courier's Sept. 1, 1962, newspaper article about Langston Hughes' Aunt "Toy" Harper.
Actually, Ethel (Toy) Dudley Harper would meet Langston's mother, Carrie Hughes, at the Inter-State Literary Association meeting in Fort Scott, Kansas in December 1903. Two years later at age 15, Toy Harper ran away from home and joined the Barnum and Bailey Circus and for the next 15 years she was singing, acting, always watching and always learning. In the 1920's she decided to make Harlem her home and opened up a dress shop. Among her clients were Florence Mills, Bessie Smith and Josephine Baker. Toy also designed garments for many of the Ziegfield and Cotton Club beauties.
A four-year-old Langston Hughes may have met Toy Harper at the Circus on July 21, 1905. In the 1920's Carrie Hughes introduced Toy Harper to Langston. Toy became Langston's forever Aunt.
In 1947 Langston and Emerson & Toy Harper would co-own their Harlem Brownstone home together for his last 20 years of Langston's life.
Toy was at a medical clinic in New York when the desk clerk asked her to fill in the space reserved for "race." Toy wrote "human." The clerk insisted that she be more specific. Toy erased "human" and wrote "Mongrel," with the comment, "That's what we all are, but most of us either don't know it or won't admit it."
Newspaper credit: The Pittsburgh Courier, newspapers.com by ancestry.com.
Photo credit: The Langston Hughes collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.
