Randal Maurice Jelks

Randal Maurice Jelks is a professor, a documentary producer, and award-winning author. Jelks is the author of three books African Americans in the Furniture City: The Struggle for Civil Rights Struggle in Grand Rapids , Benjamin Elijah Mays, Schoolmaster of the Movement: A Biography and Faith and Struggle in the Lives of Four African Americans: Ethel Waters, Mary Lou Williams, Eldridge Cleaver and Muhammad Ali. His forthcoming book is Letters to Martin: Meditations on Democracy in Black America (Lawrence Hill Books, Chicago, January 11, 2022). His writings have appeared in the Boston Review, the Los Angeles Review of Books as well as blogs, journals, newspapers, and periodicals. He is the co-editor of the academic journal American Studies.