Dr. Randal Maurice Jelks
Dr. Randal Maurice Jelks is an award-winning author, documentary film producer, and professor. He is the author of four books. His writings have appeared in the Boston Review, the Los Angeles Review of Books, blogs, journals, and periodicals.
February 2026
My America
Langston Hughes on Democracy
Best known as the leader of the Harlem Renaissance, the celebrated poet and writer Langston Hughes believed in the power of art as resistance. What can we learn from his works today?
Randal M. Jelks delivers this revelatory portrait of the celebrated poet, essayist, playwright, and American artist Langston Hughes. My America traces Hughes’s journey from a child captivated by the wonder of Kansas City to cosmopolitan witness in Paris, New York, Mexico City, and Madrid. We encounter Hughes as a young man discovering the pulse of modern life in a world on the verge of exploding metaphorically and literally. His experiences informed his work and his thinking on art, democracy, and activism.
Author
A leading voice in African American studies, he sheds insightful light on history, religion, and social movements....
Essays, Op-eds & Reviews
Independent scholar Dr. Randal Jelks offers insightful analysis in African American history, religion, and social movements, challenging conventional ...
African Americans &
In The Furniture City
African Americans in the Furniture City is unique not only in terms of its subject, but also for its framing of the African American struggle for survival, civil rights, and community inside a discussion of the larger white community.
Benjamin Elijah Mays
Schoolmaster of the Movement
Jelks argues that Mays’s ability to connect the message of Christianity with the responsibility to challenge injustice prepared the black church for its pivotal role in the civil rights movement.
Faith and Struggle
In The Lives of Four African Americans
This book explores the faith stories of four African Americans: Ethel Waters, Mary Lou Williams, Eldridge Cleaver, and Muhammad Ali. It examines their autobiographical writings, interviews, speeches, letters, and memorable performances to understand how each of these figures used religious faith publicly to reconcile deep personal struggles, voice their concerns for human dignity, and reinvent their public image.
Letters To Martin
Meditations On Democracy In Black America
is an original collection of twelve literary essays. It is a meditation on contemporary history and political struggles. Each essay builds on words offered by Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as the author’s own autobiographical reflections.
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