MLK Must Be Spinning In His Grave

 

 

 

 

MEETING OF THE MINDS  2/14/1990  (This column appears on the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X.)

 

“If blood is to flow in the streets, let it be ours,” said Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the son of a Baptist minister.

 

“Aggression in the name of self-defense is not violence,” countered Malcolm X, the son of a Baptist minister.  “It’s honor.”

 

“Sometimes you got to be able to ride the bus,” Dr. King pointed out, “before you get to drive it.”

 

Malcolm: “When the music is the tango, you tango.”

 

“We will live together as brothers or we will most certainly perish as fools.” – Martin.

 

“You don’t tame the lion and leave the jungle unchanged.”  More Malcolm.

 

“The Meeting,” at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, is a play of words and ideologies and style and methods.  The hour-long one act is Jeff Stetson’s vision of what might have occurred if Martin Luther King and Malcolm X had actually met to explore their political differences.  And, yes, their similarities.

 

It’s a provocative debate between two black men who would surrender their own lives, so that others could live theirs in dignity.  It’s a play that should be seen.

 

“If people are coming to see an impersonation of these men, they should stay home,” offers Rick Jones, the noted Portland actor, who directs “The Meeting” and stars as the controversial Muslim leader.

 

“If they’re coming to see two cocks in a fight, they should stay home.  If they are coming to listen and to understand the philosophies of these men and maybe find out why the struggle was so important to each of them, they should expect to be moved.”

 

Jones pauses, gathers his thoughts.  “I guess what I’m trying to say…. what these two men were fighting for them is still with us today.”

Therein lies much of the power of “The Meeting.”  You sit in that old engine house – on a street recently cleansed of prostitution and drugs – and you listen to an emotionally charged conversation between a self-educated ex-con and a Nobel laureate with a doctoral degree.

 

Two black Americans both struck down at age 39 by bullets and hatred and fear.  Two human beings who achieved greatness doing the work of One God, and who left the job undone.  You sit there – in a city where one man is virtually forgotten and the other is remembered with controversy – and you experience a growing sense of awareness that this would be a very different nation indeed if Malcolm X and Dr. King had been allowed to continue their work and their lives.  This would be a different city.

 

“Their last speeches clearly indicate both men knew they were going to die soon,” Jones points out.

 

“I’ve been to the mountaintop.  And I’ve seen the Promised Land,” King proclaimed.  “I may not get there with you.  But… we as a people will get to the Promised Land.  So, I’m happy tonight.  I’m not fearing any man.”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyI1LMmV3V0

 

Happy one night, dead the next.  That’s what makes this play important now.  It sits there like a skunk at a garden party, reminding us that these two guys, men with wives and mothers and children were gunned down fighting for freedom.  Fighting a battle yet to be won a quarter-century after their deaths.  Yet to be won.  Still.

 

“The Meeting” opens and closes with Malcolm X alone on stage.  The idea to get together with Dr. King is Malcolm’s and the setting is his hotel suite in Harlem.  It’s as if the play was written to raise Malcolm’s status to that of Martin.  After all, the post offices don’t close on both birthday’s.  Jones smiles when asked about the dominance of his role.

 

“What I love about Malcolm…,” Jones leans forward.  “A lot of blacks were blaming whites for all their troubles.  Malcolm said that was nothing but a bunch of crap.  You don’t need that crutch, he said.  Take responsibility for your own life.  Muslims have a strict religious code.  No drinking.  No sex outside of marriage.  No drugs.  Nothing to make you less than your best.”  Black pride.

 

Jones is proud of “The Meeting” – justifiably.  Like many plays he’s been involved with in sixteen years in Portland, “The Meeting” pierces the veil of righteousness that cloaks the racism in our everyday lives.

 

On the stage, no one questions the battle, just the choice of weapons.  Martin chose to be beaten, Malcolm chose to strike back.  Martin chose to love, Malcolm chose to beat plowshares into swords.  There’s a sense that a third leader was needed, someone who combined the quiet strength of Dr. King and the dignified rage of Malcolm X.

 

“The Meeting” presents evidence that both men were made more effective by the work of the other.  “We do work together,” says Martin, as powerfully portrayed by Anthony P. Armstrong.  “Most people don’t realize that.”

 

One who does is Rick Jones.  “Without Malcolm,” a huge smile illuminates his dark features.  “Martin wouldn’t have looked nearly so good.”

 

You sit in the audience and you listen to these two great leaders persuasively argue their differing views.  Martin said that “the shape of the world today does not permit us the luxury of a faltering democracy….  If America is to remain a first-class nation, it cannot have a second-class citizenship.”

 

And Malcolm said, “We want freedom by any means necessary.  We want justice by any means necessary.  We want equality by any means necessary.”

 

 

You sit there and you thank Rick Jones for having the courage and energy to bring “The Meeting to Portland.  Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. still have much to offer us.

 

 

The two men died, but the dream both shared lives on.