Yes, I do wonder what they'd think. I also wonder if it would be mostly good that came from it.
I went to a one-act play in Madison last weekend. The premise was to display a conversation that never happened, unfortunately: Between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.
It was called "The Meeting," and the premise was that it would have taken place in early 1965, just before Malcolm X because the first of them to be gunned down. In fact, a minor role of a bodyguard was written in, largely because X had been threatened many times and that followers of Elijah Mohammad were laying for him.
But seemed incidental to the main event. Martin arrived and they predictably started in on each other. Being the one with the most strident philosophy on how to deal with white racism, Malcolm X asserted himself. He was never one for non-violent resistance. His response to being attacked for attending a university or sitting in a segregated lunch counter was to hit back.
Of course, X's rhetoric, re-created by playwright Jeff Stetson, came at King's character, played by Willian Toney, with an undeniable rush. But by this time, King had heard all of that. He fended off the stridency of X, played by Talen Marshall, with deftness and calm.
In real life, though, both men made strides toward the other's approach. In The Autobiography of Malcolm X, ghostwritten by Alex Haley, later the author of Roots, he appears astonished that people of all colors and philosophies could worship together at the Hajj, or the pilgrimage of Muslims to Mecca, one of the Five Pillars of the religion that all devotees of Allah should at least try to perform once in their lives. X's edge toward distrust and suspicion toward whites begins to fall off. All the more a shame that he didn't have the chance to explore the implications of that new attitude.
King continued his philosophy of non-violent resistance to segregation until his own violent end. But instead of being completely passive, which Freedom Riders and marchers (often led by him) tended to reflect, he leaned toward a more aggressive tone, support of unions, in the months before his own assassination. In fact, he was in Memphis, in support of garbage workers' unions, when he was shot. The viciousness of responses to protests reached their peak, he said, not in the South, where they were bad enough, but in Chicago. Perhaps that triggered more strong-willed responses elsewhere.
The one-act nature of the play left little time to explore those late-in-life inclinations more deeply. The purpose of the play, it appeared, was at least to expose the fundamentals of the two activists' approaches so that the younger Black students (this took place at Madison Area Technical College, now known as Madison College), living far later than their lives' expanse, could at least compare the two and discuss it among themselves. In that, I thought, it succeeded. I'm glad it did, because as time slips farther away, clarification and exposition of what the two had to deal with are all the more necessary.
A symbolic gesture ran its path through the play. The two squared off in arm-wrestling matches which became indicative as to which man's philosophy would hold sway. Malcolm X won the first without much of a challenge, but King won the second, surprising Malcolm. The tie-breaking and decisive third? In the play, at least, neither could win. The playwright didn't want to go there.
I can. So far, at least in practicable display, King has won. Think about the reaction to George Floyd--strong, but most peaceful. Aggressive, violent reactions were put down almost immediately. So far, at least, Black resisters haven't resorted to organized weaponry. Heaven help us if they do.
Economically, though, Blacks need to go an even greater distance--here, Malcolm X would win. He foresaw a greater, more sweeping respect potentially emerging. "You want to desegregate the lunch counters," said his character to King. "We want to own the lunch counters." Ironically, it would be another method of non-violence.
At the end, they hugged. I doubt that that would have happened in, say, 1962. But if both had lived into the '70s, their respect might have grown appreciably. The violent bent of our society made sure we'll never know. They were not unaware of this. Both knew someone was coming for them.
A panel discussion, including the director of the play as well as the actors, followed. About half the attending crowd stayed, and questions from it were featured. Naturally, one question posed asked how the entourage felt Martin Luther King and Malcolm X would feel today. It was asked generally, without specifics, and so were the answers.
I thought that to be too bad. I would want to know how they thought the two activists would consider the murder of George Floyd, for instance; the presidency of ex-, dripping with ugly white supremacy; the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse; critical race theory; or the continued Republican efforts to limit Black voting. But perhaps that was too much to ask for. The discussion took about half an hour. It would take a whole course to explain the relative paucity of advancement of the Black race and why the resistance to it is still obvious and unabating. There were about ten people on the panel and most of them weighed in on most of the questions. A drilling down would have taken hours.
I wonder after all that effort and energy expended, though, the two legends would look at today's situation and say to themselves; We did all that for this? We're standing still. We're still standing still. We've tried everything--being nice about it, being tough about it, being intellectual about it. Resistance, still. Racism, still. Prospects, still dim.
No longer any reason for any of it, either. The struggle goes on. Repeat a hope and maybe it becomes true: We shall overcome. Someday.
Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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