Malcolm X

Malcolm X

Malcolm X, or "Detroit Red" as he was known while pushing reefer  in Harlem, has had an impact on the events of the last ten years beyond what is generally understood. This lack of recognition has been fostered first and foremost by what it now appears Was a calculated FBI murder of the brilliant black liberation leader, but also by a sparsity of dialogue on his history and role in current mass informational outlets.

Enter in the midst of this void the extraordinary play presented several weeks ago in Ann Arbor by the University of Michigan Showcase Theatre group, El Haij Malik, A Play about Malcolm X. Director Michael Pinkney and the all-black student cast have succeeded in fashioning a tremendously moving piece of theatre, dance, song, and oration from the script by N.R. Davidson

El Haij Malik is structured as a chronological] biography of Malcolm Little of Mason, Michigan ( just outside Lansing). later known by his Muslim faith designation as Malcolm X. The character of Malcolm himself is assumed in performance by the collective cast as a whole, all of whom. both men and women, take turns enacting various portions of Malcolm X life.

El Hajj Malik - A Play About Malcolm X a University Showcase Production by N.R. David' i Directed by Mikell Pinkney

The effect is that his speeches, his words, come across as the conscience of black people everywhere.

The dialogue and speech-making are interrupted at sporadic intervals when the entire cast breaks out Into frenzied dance and song. Towards the beginning of the program comes a scene when Malcolm, having recently moved to the big city of Boston, gets a job shining shoes m the men 's room of a large swing ballroom. As his curiosity takes him to the dance floor, we see five or six alternating Malcolms and the entire cast explode Into the lindy-hop style of the day. Except for the actual words of Malcolm as delivered by the cast when enacting public speeches, the dance routines are the high point oi the show

From a country-shy boy Malcolm rapidly develops in the environs of  Boston and then New York into a sporting man about town, dealing the finest reefer in Harlem and running from the man for a variety of extra-legal activities wholly typical of the day. Eventually he's put away for a few years. In prison, Malcolm reads everything he can gel his hands on, then receives the word of Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Black Muslims until his death last year .

Through the Muslim ideology, Malcolm comes to see how his plight has come about through the social machinations of a white power structure, and turns his attention to fighting it to free his people. Released from prison, he becomes the Muslim's finest orator and organizer. Through his appearances in the media and at huge arena, Malcolm works to turn around his people's instilled sense of shame for being black, and leads them to tee the source of their oppression,

Traveling to the holy land of the Koran, Mecca, he finds people of the Caucasian race who

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 Malcolm X

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share his religion and sense of humanity. Returning to the states, he leaves the Black Muslims and the belief that all white people, regardless of inclination, are and always will be the "devils", to form his own organization for Afro-American Unity.

The intensity of his message and delivery, the response to it in the black and part of the white community. climax in the play, as they did in real lite, with Malcolm's assassination in the midst of a rousing speech ("you aren't ever going to convince the man to cease his oppression by joining hands and singing 'we shall overcome "). In this case the fatal wound is fired explosively from the left aisle near row 10, with shattering impact on the audience's psyche and understanding of why Malcolm X was murdered.

In recent years, although the play didn't explore this, it has been documented that Eugene Roberts, Malcolm's "bodyguard" the night he was gunned down, the man who administered the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation some say could have saved him, was an FBI agent. Roberts went on to actually found the New York chapter of the Black Panther Party on behalf of the police, who later arrested 21 Party members on phony bombing charges based on his testimony. The Panther 21 were later completely acquitted of this police provocateur scheme.

Congratulations to Mikell Pinkney and the cast for a fine piece of relevant, instructional drama which will hopefully return again soon.

--David Fenton