PBS Books, in partnership with the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), is pleased to interview Dr. Randal Maurice Jelks, author of “Letters to Martin: Meditations on Democracy in Black America”. His book contains 12 meditations on contemporary political struggles for our society. The moderator of the conversation will be Venise Wagner.
Written in the form of letters to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jelks will provide insights his work that speaks 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 Jelks invites readers to reflect on US history by centering on questions of democracy that we must grapple with as a society.
Following the conversation, there will be an opportunity for questions from audience members on Facebook.
About the Author
Randal Maurice Jelks is a professor, a documentary producer and award-winning author. His latest book, “Letters to Martin: Meditations on Democracy in Black America” (Chicago Review Press, Jan 11, 2022) evokes Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter from the Birmingham Jail and contains 12 meditations on many of the public issues currently faced by citizens in the United States —economic inequality, freedom of assembly, police brutality, ongoing social class conflicts, and geopolitics.
Jelks was an executive producer of the documentary “I, Too, Sing America: Langston Hughes Unfurled”, and he currently teaches American Studies, African Studies and African American Studies at the University of Kansas. His writings have appeared in the Boston Review and The Los Angeles Review of Books, and he also serves as co-editor of the academic journal, “American Studies.”
About the Moderator
Venise Wagner is professor of journalism at San Francisco State University where she has taught since 2001. She has a 12-year career as a reporter for several California dailies, including The Orange County Register, The San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle. She has won awards for her coverage of education and of religion/ethics. She has covered border issues, religion and ethics, schools and education, urban issues and issues in the Bay Area’s various black communities. Venise served as chair of the Journalism Department from January 2008 to January 2013, a department at the time with 500 students. She has a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urban and a M.A. in International Policy Studies, with an emphasis in Latin America from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
She is co-author/co-editor of “Reporting Inequality: Tools and Methods for Covering Race and Ethnicity,” which was published in 2019 by Routledge. She is working on a forthcoming family memoir that explores the intergenerational impact of structural racism on her family from slavery to the 1970s.