Big Idea: Democracy As a Matter of the Spirit
October 18, 2022
By Randal Jelks, Professor of African and African American Studies and American Studies at the University of Kansas.
In April 1968, Randal Jelks was a sixth grader in New Orleans when Rev. Martin Luther King was assassinated. One year later, he joined a large group of boys organized by the Dryades Street YMCA to visit King’s gravesite in Atlanta. “That trip was formative,” Jelks writes in his new book, Letters to Martin: Meditations on Democracy in Black America. “It was the beginning of our relationship.”
“Our relationship” being between Jelks and his lifelong exploration of King’s life and teachings. In Letters to Martin, he addresses each chapter as a letter to King, sharing reflections, callbacks, and updates on the state of American democracy since King’s death.
Dr. Randal Jelks is Professor of African and African American Studies and American Studies at the University of Kansas. He will join Dr. Valerie Mendoza (Washburn University) in conversation about his book in the season opener of the Big Idea on Wednesday, October 26 at noon. Registration is required for this free event.
The book is part memoir, part social critique on how the United States came to be the country we are today. Small elements of Jelks’s personal story show the reader how King’s life has impacted his own, just as it continues to influence our world.
For readers born since King’s death, Letters to Martin serves as a strong primer to King’s legacy. Whereas King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is American canon, many are not as familiar with his speeches and writings prior to the 1963 March on Washington.
Jelks takes the reader to King’s boyhood relationships with his mother and grandmother, his early days as a minister, and his ascension as the greatest Civil Rights leader of his time. He explores King’s powerful rhetoric and the philosophies that shaped his views. By using King’s work as guideposts throughout his own life, Jelks leads the reader through a short national history, pointing to each place where King’s legacy resonates.
One such area is King’s assertion that Black creativity was born from resistance to enslavement—and that this creativity has strengthened our democracy over the years. As Jelks observes, “Black America flipped the script on a racialized democratic state to make it more perfect. It is Black people’s fight that makes the United States exceptional. It is our cultural ecumenism that makes our country shine brightly to the world’s people. Other peoples see links to Black freedom struggles; this is what makes the Bill of Rights live.”
“Black America flipped the script on a racialized democratic state to make it more perfect. It is Black people’s fight that makes the United States exceptional. It is our cultural ecumenism that makes our country shine brightly to the world’s people. Other peoples see links to Black freedom struggles; this is what makes the Bill of Rights live.”
Before Jelks earned his doctorate in history, he was a seminarian, and he takes a theologian’s view of democracy. “In my estimation, this is what democracy is all about: the breath of self-respect and respect for others. This is the truth of all great faiths—and democracy is a faith, a belief system,” he writes. “This is why we must consider democracy as a matter of the spirit.”
Jelks’s meditations evoke the despair and hope, love and frustration that many Americans feel toward our social fabric in 2022. This personal, emotional approach is what shapes Letters to Martin as a moving and meditative social analysis. It is not a book about King’s time; it is fully a book about our democracy today. As he writes in his letter titled “The Highest Ethical Ideal,” Jelks asserts, “Democracy requires continuous cultivation of hope, which first must be internally ploughed.”
Spark a Conversation
- READ Letters to Martin: Meditations on Democracy in Black America by Randal Maurice Jelks (Chicago Review Press, 2022).
- EXPLORE 21st Century Civics, HK’s collection of speakers, book discussions, exhibits, and opportunities that invite Kansans to participate in 21st century civics and learn more about the history of American democracy and the shared responsibilities of citizenship.
- WATCH Last season’s Big Idea series highlighting Indigenous scholars tackling topics such as education, language preservation, and storytelling.