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.
