MLK Committee presents "The Meeting"

The civil rights movement has been championed by many a prominent leader, but Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X will forever be remembered as the two principle ideologues of this field. Both men measured themselves by the progress they made and contributed significantly, but separately, to the movement.

At 4 p.m. Sunday in the Whittenberger Auditorium, the IU Bloomington MLK, Jr. Day Celebration Committee is honoring each man’s role in the resistance with a complimentary performance of “The Meeting.” A reception celebrating each man’s life and death will follow in the University Club.

The play is set on February 4, 1965 in a cramped Harlem hotel. Written by Jeff Stetson, it narrates an imagined conversation between Malcom X and King, who each discuss the difference in their beliefs. A week following the conversation, Malcom X is assassinated and, three days later, King is killed. The play is advertised as a serious debate between the two leaders, each of who was “willing to lay down their lives for the cause of justice.”

Jeff Robinson, a graduate of the Berklee College of Music, acts as King, and Wesley Lawrence Taylor, graduate of the New Theater Conservatory, plays Malcom X. Michael Nurse, an alumnus of Emerson College, also has a part in the production.