Langston Hughes and Black History Month to be featured on Newsmakers

(From KGCS)

Area residents can learn more about Joplin native Langston Hughes during Black History Month and beyond through an expanding exhibit at the Joplin History & Mineral Museum. The display and research efforts of a couple known as ‘history detectives’ are the focus of the next Newsmakers program.

Kirk Sharp, Executive Director of the Gordon Parks Museum and Joplin Museum Curator Chris Wiseman discuss a temporary exhibit, titled “Harlem Renaissance and the Renaissance Man.” 

 A panel chronicles the collaborations and connections between Parks, a photographer and Hughes, an African American poet of protest on race relations, as well as a novelist, and playwright. It is on display within the “Uplifting Joplin” exhibit at the museum through April.

Bill Martin explains how he and his wife Doris traced the history of Hughes’ family and their arrival in Joplin, Hughes’ birthplace and the discovery of a previously unknown sibling.

Tierra Haws who is President of the Langston Hughes Cultural Society shares details of plans to place a marker at Hughes birthplace, and the work by Carthage students to learn about local Black History.

Newsmakers is airing nightly at 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. the week of February 16 on KGCS-TV and will air at 5:30 a.m. Saturday, February 22 on KOAM-TV. It is also posted on the station’s YouTube channel: KGCS – Missouri Southern State University.

KGCS-TV programming can be seen on channel 21 and is also available on regional cable television systems such as Sparklight, Mediacom and Suddenlink Communications. The station operates as a service of the Department of Communication at Missouri Southern State University.