Dr. Randal Jelks - Author

Letters to Martin: Meditations on Democracy in Black America

Dr. Randal Jelks is the author of Letters to Martin: Meditations on Democracy in Black America. He is my former neighbor, a professor, and documentary producer. He was an executive producer of the documentary I, Too, Sing America: Langston Hughes Unfurled. He currently teaches American Studies, African Studies, and African American Studies at the University of Kansas.

Letters to Martin, contains twelve meditations on contemporary political struggles for our oxygen-deprived society. Evoking Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letters To A Birmingham Jail,” these meditations, written in the form of letters to King, speak specifically to the many public issues we presently confront in the United States—economic inequality, freedom of assembly, police brutality, ongoing social class conflicts, and geopolitics. Award-winning author Randal Maurice Jelks invites readers to reflect on US history by centering on questions of democracy that we must grapple with as a society.

This episode is made possible by:

University of Michigan Health-West and Dr. Peter Hahn

Brian Kelly Photography & Film