Randal Maurice Jelks
Film, Theology
Historian Randal Maurice Jelks is Professor of African and African American Studies and American Studies at the University of Kansas. He has written two award-winning books: African Americans in the Furniture City (2006) and Benjamin Elijah Mays: Schoolmaster of the Movement (2012). Jelks is also the author of Faith and Struggle in the Lives of Four African Americans: Ethel Waters, Mary Lou Williams, Eldridge Cleaver, and Muhammad Ali (2019).
Jelks co-edits the academic journal American Studies. He served as executive producer of the 2020 documentary I, Too, Sing America: Langston Hughes Unfurled. Jelks holds an M.Div. from McCormick Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in History from the Comparative Black History Program at Michigan State University.
