Fri 2/22 @ 7:30PM
Malcolm X who was assassinated in 1965, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., similarly killed in 1968, had very different ideas about social justice and how to attain racial equity. While their movements ran more or less parallel chronologically and they rose to prominence at about the same time, the divergence in their approaches and their followings meant that they were not natural collaborators. Malcolm X was much more militant and often criticized the civil rights movement, even mocking the legendary 1963 March on Washington. And in fact, they only met once very briefly in 1964.
Jeff Stetson’s 1987 The Meeting imagines how a prolonged private encounter (set in a hotel room) between the two men might have gone, allowing for a contrast of their differing styles and conflicting beliefs.
The Shaker Arts Council presents a reading of the script in Conversations in Courage: A Theatrical Performance of The Meeting, at Heights Christian Church in Shaker Heights. Two prominent area actors, who have appeared on many local stages, star: Peter Lawson Jones as Malcolm X and Greg White Jr. as Dr. King.
Tickets are $24; $15 for students.