Now I think I'm legit

You know who there are some things that you've got to experience before you can be authentic. It usually begins like “you ain't had no real knee-grow experience unless ____________.” Things like going south for the summer to stay with relatives, getting your hair fried, cleaning chitlins... the list goes on.

I can now cross an item on that list because last weekend I went to see The Meeting. This may not seem like a big deal unless you knew just how much of an political animal I was back in the day -- I'm talking both of Jesse's presidential campaigns in 1984 & 1988, getting arrested outside of the South African Embassy in D.C. during the anti-apartheid movement (and I've never lived in Washington) – you might scratch your head and wonder how I managed not to see this 27-year old monumental piece of Black theater. ANYWHO...

So I saw a production mounted by New Horizon Theater, one of the oldest continually-running Black ensembles in Pittsburgh. The premise of Jeff Stetson's play is what if... an oft-heard premise these days.

Both men of faith, fathers of young children, assassinated at 39-years old, both prodding the same people -- a slumbering giant – awake. Daring to arouse, inspire, stir Black people, the oppressed, to action. Malcolm X, recently returned from his hajj at Mecca (did he foresee his own death?) and Martin Luther King, Jr. (who said he might not get to the mountain top with us). 

The Meeting is more than a meeting of the minds, it is a moment in time that we were denied. They had a common enemy, but used different descriptors of that enemy, just as the different tactics they'd employ to reach the same goal. Just imagine that great debate; Frederick Douglass must be smiling.

The Meeting is a means to get us beyond the “what ifs.” We hear both sides – non-violence vs. violence; resistance as a weakness and violence as the last result. All three actors-- Jonathan Berry as the personal bodyguard, Art Terry as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz and Michael Green as MLK – approach and play their roles with a reverence that approaches sacred in their dedication to WHO they portray as well as the messages they bring with the same amount of credibility and responsibility.

The themes in The Meeting don't seem so much “back then” in the 1960s as they do now, a half century later. Few, if any, people of color can honestly say they thought we wouldn't drag this mess in to the new millennium.

Yet here we are in 2015 with the stench of justice via Trayvon, Travis, Eric, et al still stinging our nostrils. The difference is that in 50 years later, we have the benefit of Malcolm and Martin's words in this moment. Thanks to director Eileen J. Morris, we're not allowed to forget the urgency of right now. So yes, this is a teachable moment.

See this with young people and discuss it with them; they are the ones on the front lines. The rest of us need to make sure that they're properly armed.