Revolutionary Meeting
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X were two very different civil rights activists; the former was a Christian minister of great intellect who preached about love and equality while heading numerous nonviolent demonstrations; the latter, a prominent spokesman for the Nation of Islam and an aggressive freedom fighter who demanded justice for his people "by any means necessary." However, in spite of their contrasting methods and ideas, both shared an important goal: to end racism.
As part of its Black History Month celebration, USF-St. Petersburg hosts a free, fictional play based on a meeting of these two great minds and performed by the Boston-based Grimes Theatre Group. The Meeting is a powerful drama that takes place in a hotel room circa 1965 Harlem and emphasizes the famous leaders' divergent views about how to achieve equality.
Writer Jeff Stetson has earned eight NAACP Theatre Image awards for this play, which has been staged throughout the United States and Europe. For more information about this and other Black History Month events, call 727-553-4845 (7 p.m. Wed., Feb. 23. Davis Hall, USF-St. Petersburg, 140 Seventh Ave. S., Saint Petersburg).
This article appears in Feb 16-22, 2005.
