Randal Jelks: My America
Schedule
Thu, 23 Apr, 2026 at 07:00 pm
UTC-05:00Location
900 Sunnyside Ave, Lawrence, KS, United States, Kansas 66045 | Lawrence, KS
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Randal Jelks presents "My America: Langston Hughes on Democracy"🗓️ Thursday, April 23
⏰ 7:00 PM
📍 Hall Center Conference Hall (and online at https://www.crowdcast.io/c/jelks)
This talk draws from "My America: Langston Hughes on Democracy," which traces Langston Hughes’ journey from being a child captivated by Kansas City to an adult cosmopolitan witness in Paris, New York, Mexico City, and Madrid. Randal Jelks examines how Hughes’ experiences in a world on the brink of upheaval shaped his thinking on art, democracy, and activism. Best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes believed in the power of art as resistance and consistently wrote about democracy from a joyous perspective. Jelks explores how Hughes’ work addresses creative expression, communal dignity, class struggle and human suffering, and what these themes reveal about democracy in later moments of political crisis.
Dr. Jelks is an award-winning author, documentary film producer, and professor. His writings have appeared in the Boston Review, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and other journals and periodicals. He will be in conversation with Dr. Maryemma Graham, distinguished professor emerita in the KU Department of English and founder of the History of Black Writing (HBW), which focuses on literary recovery work in Black studies.
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Where is it happening?
900 Sunnyside Ave, Lawrence, KS, United States, Kansas 66045Event Location & Nearby Stays:
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