Robert Merle Farnsworth (May 5, 1929 – March 7, 2022) was an American author and academic who worked as a Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Missouri–Kansas City.
He wrote about prominent literary figures and civil rights activists including Melvin B. Tolson and Leon Jordan.
[5] In Rhetoric at the Margins: Revising the History of Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1873-1947, author David Gold wrote, "Robert M. Farnsworth's finely balanced and carefully researched biography does little worse than suggest that Tolson's love for argumentation may have intimidated his children, who nonetheless respected him and loved him dearly.
The book included selections from a weekly newspaper column on black culture that Tolson had written for seven years.
The work was described in Kirkus Reviews as a "resonant briefing on an American who bore eloquent witness to a turning point in Asian history.