Despite overwhelming odds growing up in Kansas during the 20th century, three great literary and artistic figures found success that is still celebrated today.

Langston Hughes, Gordon Parks and Frank Marshall Davis contributed to the American arts in different ways, and one Kansas University professor argues it’s their time in Kansas that made them stronger people and authors.

J. Edgar Tidwell, associate professor of English, shared their stories Saturday at Watkins Community Museum of History, 1047 Mass. He presented “Against the Odds: Writers Growing up Black in Kansas,” the first program in the museum’s 2008 Local History Makers Series. The program was sponsored by the Kansas Humanities Council.

Tidwell shared synopses of each Kansan’s most well-known works and memoirs and discussed to a crowd of about 20 how each overcame personal struggles, such as racism, segregation and poverty, while growing up in the Midwest.

Hughes, a poet and novelist, was born in Joplin, Mo., in 1902, before moving to Lawrence. He faced poverty, a broken family and segregation in elementary school.

Parks was born in 1912 and grew up the youngest of 15 children in a poor family in Fort Scott. When he was 16, his mother died and he began traveling and working odd jobs. He became a journalist, photographer, writer and filmmaker. Tidwell said Parks had said he had a right to be bitter, but he expressed those feelings through art instead of taking pity on himself as can be seen in “The Learning Tree.”

Davis was born in 1905 in south-central Kansas. At age 5, Tidwell said, Davis was almost lynched, but he was saved by a white man passing by. Davis became a journalist and activist – a “major cultural voice” of his time, Tidwell said. Tidwell said Kansas made Davis a stronger creative genius.

Tidwell said Davis had the angriest response to his upbringing, which he showed in his nonfiction work such as “Livin’ the Blues: Memoirs of a Black Journalist and Poet.” Hughes and Parks recounted and re-created earlier events in their lives through fiction without the explicit anger, Tidwell said.

It’s a personal interrogation into the past that can make individuals great, Tidwell said.

“They all gained success over overwhelming odds,” Tidwell said. “Indeed, they left us with legacies to be proud of.”

Tim Bonner, of Lawrence, said he appreciated Tidwell sharing his “wealth of knowledge” about all three authors. Bonner, a clinical psychologist and amateur writer, said the program was inspirational.

“I couldn’t miss this,” he said. “I’m glad I didn’t.”