Performance portrays talk between civil rights leaders

Published 5:52 pm Wednesday, February 21, 2018

An audience will get to see what might have happened if civil rights leaders Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had ever met for a discussion.

On Friday, Leeds Center for the Arts will host one performance of “The Meeting,” a one-act play that explores how the two men might have interacted at the peak of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

“We thought it was a compelling story for Black History month,” Winchester Council for the Arts President Tracey Miller said. “It’s sort of about how they  are working for the same goal but they are approaching it from totally different ways.”

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The play, written in 1987 by Jeff Stetson, is set in a Harlem hotel room in 1965. Throughout the play, the two discuss their approaches to civil rights, with King espousing peaceful resistance and Malcolm X leading toward violence.

The play is fiction, as there is no record of the two ever meeting.

The Leeds performance will feature Lexington actors Patrick Mitchell and Whit Whitaker in the lead roles with Steve Bates playing X’s bodyguard.

The play is free but tickets should be reserved through www.leedscenter.org, Miller said, as seating is limited.

“We’re very excited about it,” Miller said. “We’d like to program more for Black History Month and partner with other organizations.”

About Fred Petke

Fred Petke is a reporter for The Winchester Sun, the Jessamine Journal and the State Journal. His beats include cops, courts, fire, public records, city and county government and other news. To contact Fred, email fred.petke@bluegrassnewsmedia.com or call 859-759-0051.

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