Doctor Randal Jelks is an Associate Professor of American Studies with a joint appointment in African and African American Studies. He is the co-editors of the journal American Studies and one of the founders and co-editors of the blog theblackbottom.com.
Jelks is a graduate of South Shore High School (Chicago), the University of Michigan (BA in History),McCormick Theological Seminary (Masters of Divinity) and Michigan State University (Ph.D. in History); he is also an ordained clergy person in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Before joining the faculty of the University of Kansas, Professor Jelks taught at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Dr. Jelks was the 2006-2007 Rockefeller Foundation Fellow at the National Humanities Center in Research Park Triangle, North Carolina and in 2008 he was the Langston Hughes Visiting Professor at the University of Kansas in American Studies.
Jelks has published both scholarly and journalistic articles. His research and writing interests are in the area of African American Religious, Urban, and Civil Rights History. Jelks most recent article is titled “Obama, Wright, and Trinity” for the Social Science Research Council blog The Immanent Frame. He has also published an award-winning book titled African Americans in the Furniture City: the Civil Rights Struggle in Grand Rapids, Michigan (The University of Illinois Press, 2006). He has recently completed a book on Martin Luther King Jr.’s mentor titled Benjamin Elijah Mays, Schoolmaster of the Movement: A Biography (Spring 2012, University of North Carolina Press).