African American Studies Faculty Lecture with Kenneth L. Johnson II: “I Wrote to Them. They Wrote Back.: Epistolary Echoes in Black Men’s Public Letters”

Public letter writing is traditionally a form of communication to voice various sociopolitical
and personal issues. While Black men engage with public letter writing, there is much to
discuss about the space shared between Black men via letters. “Epistolary echoes” serves as an
umbrella term for a genre of public letter writing and the process through which Black men
write letters to other Black men and get a response. In this lecture, Johnson will explore
epistolary echoes to understand the utility of letter writing by Black men, moving from a theory of love to a praxis of love.