The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Returns from Heaven
to Preach upon the Topic of Who Shall Be Allowed to Play Him
To you who have bravely come to listen, to you who will read my words in the future, and to you who found it in your hearts to grant me this material dispensation, let me say I am intensely grateful for the chance to be here today. To attain the much coveted “return ticket” that transports the exalted soul back into the exuded body is no easy task, and the grave dreamer that seeks such a bestowal faces fairly ungenerous odds, for true retrogression is a request often made by all but rarely granted to few. Of course, the transit officials who hear such frequent and frenzied appeals are not indifferent to the conditions of those who wander the existential realms even they themselves once inhabited. And due to that sentimental empathy, an appeal meets with success every two or three thousand years if the supplicant is able to prove that their mission is sought upon an exceedingly serious, pivotal and unique occasion, and is moreover to be carried out strictly for the purpose of fomenting peace and justice. As my presence before you testifies, such is this occasion, such is my purpose.
Before I begin, kindly also allow me to apologize for the amount of time my sermon may take from your busy and important schedules. Given that this is the first and last time I shall journey from the felicitous groves of eternity to this our glorious homecoming wherein I may stand once again at the hopeful, precarious pulpit that was once so native to my life’s central labor of defeating segregation and growing our “beloved community,” I hope you will forgive my feeling compelled to clearly and fully delineate my views. In the end, I am but a Baptist preacher, and just as the heavy winds can roar through the night that the warm, generous fronts of the south might push aside the cold, stifling airs of the north, we can talk.
As all of us now know, in the working class town of Cleveland, Ohio, on the campus of Kent State University, there sits a modest but attractive building by the name of Oscar Ritchie Hall. Oscar Ritchie went to Kent State in 1942 and by 1947 he joined the Sociology Department, thereby becoming the first African American to serve on the faculty of any predominantly white university in Ohio. The hall was christened in his honor in 1977, and in 1985 an Oscar Ritchie scholarship was established to provide academic support to African-, Latino-, and Native-American students at Kent State. In 2010, U.S. Representative John Boccieri spoke at the Greater Stark County Urban League’s 34th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Celebration in nearby Canton, and noted that Oscar Ritchie was an important forerunner of myself in the fight for equality and justice. I very much second this nomination.
Inside the Pan African Studies Department in Oscar Ritchie’s Hall resides the African Community Theater. The theater itself is, as we used to say, not much; it is a scrappy David compared to the large, moneyed commercial and major non-profit Goliaths of the metropolises and regional circuit. Nevertheless, this “not much” is actually quite something, for it is a place where local Ohioans can make theater, have fun, and create community, which is of inestimable value to them. The African Community Theater’s Creative Director is one Michael Oatman. Mr. Oatman studied English and Theater at Cleveland State University and the Northeastern Ohio Master of Fine Arts Consortium. Besides directing theater, he is also a playwright-in-residence at Karamu Theater, the oldest African American theater in the country. His theater seeks to “increase exposure to and knowledge of the theatre heritage of African-Americans for students and local community residents of all ages.” I very much support this mission.
On September 25, 2015, this small-time but big-hearted theater under the direction of Mr. Oatman opened a play called The Mountaintop by Katori Hall. Ms. Hall, of course, is one of the most important and produced new playwrights in America today. After graduating in 1999 from Craigmont High School in Memphis, TN, as that school’s first African-American valedictorian, Ms. Hall went on to study African-American Studies, Creative Writing and Acting at Columbia, Harvard and Juilliard. Her plays have been done all over the world, including at the Signature Theater in New York City, the Trafalgar Studios on the West End in London, in the New Play Festival in Moscow, and the original production of The Mountaintop, which played on Broadway starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett, recouped its entire capitalization of $3.1 million. The list of theater awards that Ms. Hall has received – including the 2010 Olivier Best New Play award – is too long to recite, so I’ll leave it at this: I very much second these accolades.
Now, The Mountaintop happens to be a play about me. It depicts a fictional conversation I had with a mysterious woman in my room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on the eve of my assassination. Such a production would seem to be an excellent fit for the African Community Theater in the Pan African Studies Department in the Oscar Ritchie Hall of Kent State University in the working class town of Cleveland, Ohio, with positive reviews, standing ovations, hurled bouquets, and perhaps even a congratulatory note from the grateful playwright on closing night. Sadly, this was not to be the case, for Mr. Oatman made one fatal mistake that would doom him and his cast to a scathing, public damnation: he cast a white man to play me.
The details of how this came about are now the stuff of legend. At some point, Mr. Oatman had come upon the idea of casting a black man to play me for five nights and a white man to play me for three. He later explained this decision: “I wanted to really explore issues of ownership and authenticity. Can a prominent American be performed by another American or does it have to be an African-American who portrays him?” However, after more than one black actor dropped out due to family and other personal issues, Mr. Oatman inevitably gave the entire run to a white actor named Robert Branch, whom he described as one of the best actors he’d ever seen, calling him “as much a child of Martin Luther King as I am because he’s an American.” The role of the mysterious woman was filled by local African-American actress, Cristal Christian.
On the night that The Mountaintop opened, Ms. Hall was in London. At some point during the run, one of her friends attended and quickly informed Ms. Hall that a white man was playing me. And the rest, as you now say, is herstory.
My friends, the nation that succored my mortality, incited my morality, and witnessed my fatality now stands at a crossroads in the march to full racial reconciliation the momentousness of which it has only experienced twice before. Once during the Civil War of the 1860s, when white brother battled white brother and the unprecedented martial fields of machinated death roared with torrential gore that surged from the simple dispute over whether or not human union can be constructed upon dehumanizing division. And in that struggle it was game to the good. Our nation stood again at that crossroads during what I termed the Negro Revolution of the 1960s when masses of black citizens met fire, water, bomb and bullet – an unforgiving terror in the hands of white men whose ideology had been defeated, yet not destroyed, in the prior struggle – as these brave Americans strove to deposit the uncashed check of defaulted freedom that had been handed to them 100 years prior, but that had been denied such tender on the spurious claim of insufficient funds. And in that struggle too it was game to the good. Now, fifty years later, our nation stands yet again at that ominous crossroads. What is the struggle in which it is now embroiled? All know it, yet it must be named: it is the struggle over who shall be allowed to play me.
And I am come from the grave that we might say of this present struggle: game to the good.
Leaving aside that Mr. Oatman’s production of Ms. Hall’s play is not the first time I have been played by a white man – in fact, I was played by a white man so many times in my former state that my nickname in the vast beyond is Hockey – but leaving that aside, I would say that I can imagine Ms. Hall’s consternation at this “White King,” but I don’t actually need to imagine it because she has generously spelled it out in a profound and poignant letter that puts forth a number of ideals that I fully support. Ms. Hall claims a desire to correct the erasure of the black body, to remedy the long history of white appropriation, to revalue a narrative, to offer audience members a “skin experience” through the “exquisite privilege to be…with an extraordinary ordinary black man whose brown skin carries with it a certain history and experience.” In her letter, Ms. Hall also states that she has placed a licensing restriction on the play that reads, “Both characters are intended to be played by actors who are African-American or Black. Any other casting choice requires the prior approval of the author.” Lastly, Ms. Hall briefly quotes what she believes the devil’s lawyer would say on the topic, and I quote: “But Katori, we are all human beings and we should be able to step into the shoes of other humans who are unlike us. That’s how we can eradicate racism!”
Let me say first that, as I have learned since my passing, the devil does not actually have a lawyer, for like most mentally disturbed people, they always insist on representing themselves, and of course they suffer greatly for this decision in the courts of universal justice. Second, it is important to point out that the devil has not in fact spoken on the issue of who should be allowed to play me – only Ms. Hall’s imagining of what the devil would say has spoken. As for what the devil actually believes, my sources on high are looking into the matter and will attempt to report any relevant findings. Finally, whatever Ms. Hall thinks the devil’s lawyer would say, in the community most affected by her letter – the American theater community – there was not to my knowledge a single participant, organization, or leader who openly expressed sympathy for Ms. Hall’s imaginary devil. In fact, the opposite occurred – Over 1500 of the top theater professionals in the world signed a letter condemning Mr. Oatman’s decision and supporting Ms. Hall’s position that was then published in American Theater Magazine. None of them voiced support for Mr. Oatman or his actors, none of them felt it incumbent upon themselves to encourage discussion on the matter, no, not one of them did anything but unanimously shout “YES!” to every point in Katori Hall’s letter. And because this vehement, silencing “YES!” poured down from such lofty places onto the poor and struggling yet ambitious and community-driven members of the African Community Theater in the Pan African Studies Department in Oscar Ritchie Hall at Kent State University, I feel compelled to say, based on the principle of “the beloved community” and the fight against segregation that guided my life, in the case of who shall be allowed to play me, I, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., must side with the devil.
As I said earlier, Ms. Hall begins her damming diatribe against Mr. Oatman by saying that she is “committed to…visually articulating a certain skin experience.” She then continues: “black writers dedicated to using black bodies, who remain at the center of a devalued narrative, are committing a revolutionary act. We are using theater to demand a witnessing. Our experiences have been shaped by a ragged history, and dark skin has proved to be a dangerous inheritance. From Eric Garner to the Charleston Nine to the latest black girl slammed to the ground by a cop, our bodies have been used as a battlefield where the Civil War has mutated and continues to claim the lives of those who should have been freed from the sharp knife of racism centuries ago.”
To this passionate appeal to represent black bodies, to revalue a narrative, to palliate a dangerous inheritance, and to demand a witnessing, I say amen, a thousand times amen. But let me point out that Mr. Oatman tried to do exactly that by having a black man play me for the majority of the run, but due to the “family and personal issues” of more than one black actor, he inevitably went with a white actor. Mr. Oatman thus decided to try an experiment that inevitably led to what I would characterize as the race-shaming that he and Mr. Branch and Ms. Christian received from the privileged forces of theatrical segregation: he represented a white body in a black mind, he invented a new narrative, he offered a palliative to a broader dangerous inheritance, and he generated a provocative witnessing. In representing a black mind through a white body, Mr. Oatman committed an act of symbolic miscegenation that stands proud against the discriminatory prejudices that have long espoused that we must all “stick to our own kind.” The new narrative Mr. Oatman invented was one of whiteness grappling to empathize with, understand, and live through heroic, tragic blackness. Mr. Oatman palliated a dangerous inheritance, for while some clearly suffer more than others depending on circumstances, Christian generosity requires that we grant every person the dignity of being allowed to seek respite from the many tribulations through which we must enter the Kingdom of God. And Mr. Oatman brought about a witnessing of spiritual togetherness that was one of the objectives of our entire civil rights struggle by having a white man honor, emulate, and I might even say subject himself to a black man due to that black man’s power, compassion, and intellect. When our Savior said, “As I loved you, so must you love one another,” he was calling on us to realize such a witnessing of spiritual togetherness. And so to Mr. Oatman’s representation, narration, palliation and witnessing, I say amen, a thousand times amen.
In her letter, Ms. Hall praises the singular “revolutionary act” that is “black writers dedicated to using black bodies.” And to that revolutionary act I say amen, a thousand times amen. Yet while Ms. Hall gave us one revolutionary act, Mr. Oatman attempted to give us two. In the first five days of his play, he committed himself to Ms. Hall’s revolution. In the last three days, he thought to stage his own revolution by giving a white man a chance to play me, to embody my vision, to experience my struggle, and by providing an audience with the opportunity to contemplate what this might imply. Then, due to his difficult economic condition, he decided to do the entire run with a white actor and modify his experiment. Ms. Hall called this choice “self-serving and disrespectful,” but I must kindly disagree. It does not seem at all self-serving and disrespectful to me that Mr. Oatman is interested in staging an experiment as to how we might best bring about true racial equality in America. It does not seem self-serving and disrespectful to me to pursue the possibility that the horrid forces of racism emerge from the deep trenches of competitive difference that catalyze an ancient resistance to granting that one’s racial other may be heroic, or brilliant, or even human. Nor does it seem self-serving and disrespectful to me to attempt to discover if these forces might best be waylaid by facilitating the process of literally entering a member of the other race as an actor enters a character and facing the complexities, differences and oddities of that experience, to then hopefully emerge with a deeper and more compassionate understanding and appreciation of the racial other. In short, it does not seem at all self-serving and disrespectful for a black man to offer a white man and a mixed audience the opportunity to personify, admire, and emulate a great American. What seems self-serving and disrespectful to me is that the American theater industry felt comfortable race-shaming, class-shaming, and creativity-shaming a small heartland community theater that was trying to stage an experiment to address, within its local and economic circumstances, what it considered to be important issues. Therefore, because such an experiment is in fact so all-serving and universally respectful, to Mr. Oatman’s revolutionary act I must also say amen, a thousand times amen.
Now, some may say, but Reverend King, if white men playing black men leads to racial equality, then centuries of black face and appropriation would have ended our struggles long ago. Let us call this rejoinder what it is: an apple pie full of oranges. Mr. Oatman’s experiment of having a white man play me is only comparable to a white man with shoe polish on his face playing Othello if one allows one’s outrage to so engorge one’s eyes that one can no longer perceive the faint lines that guide us toward valid analogies. Othello was written by a white man, all such past productions were probably produced and directed by a white man, and Othello is a fictional character. It is even vastly different than white men putting on body hose and face paint and playing Africans in a Hollywood adventure film. The white actors playing those Africans were not forced to grapple with the humanity and majesty of the characters they were embodying. And again, the entire production was white-washed, so there was no conscious intent on the part of the production team to use cross-cultural casting as an educational, progressive experience. No, to compare Mr. Oatman’s production with past acts of inappropriate white appropriation is clearly the work of those whose agenda has twisted their parallels, whose revulsion has soured their reason, and whose passion to overturn the wrongs of history has led them to misconstrue the value of contemporary rights. If we are going to have reactions, let them not be reactionary. If we are going to oppose art, let us not be artlessly oppositional. If we are going to deny others an experience, we ourselves must not be in denial as to the tragic history of such suppression.
Ms. Hall goes on to say that by restricting my depiction to black actors she wishes to redress a misperception, nay an injustice, namely the fact that studies show that black people are viewed as feeling less pain than white people, and she hopes by limiting my role to a black actor’s body she can remedy this false and prejudicial judgment. Her hope is that this will “build a bridge over our country’s ever widening racial empathy gap.” And to narrowing that gap I say amen, a thousand times amen. Yet as my good friend Socrates recently said to me, “Beware the physician whose medicine prevents medical research.”
The science of psychology tells us that to increase empathy a person needs to open up their emotions, interact with a wide range of people, seek out similarities between themselves and others, and practice taking on different perspectives, during which process one’s “mirror neurons” – yes, though ensconced in the wisdom of the ages, I have remained somewhat versed in the newest scientific trends – these “mirror neurons,” as I said, begin to react to emotions expressed by others and then reproduce them. Now, admittedly, Ms. Hall has prescribed a very powerful formula to encourage this process of increasing empathy: as white people watch a black actor portray me, they will begin to feel empathy for me, the black actor, and by extension all black people. Mr. Oatman, having tried to implement the medicinal regimen preferred by Ms. Hall, but finding himself unable to do so due to his situation, decided to conduct an experiment on a different medication, one that he felt might at least possibly address a separate aspect of the “lack of racial empathy” illness that Ms. Hall has declared to be so exclusively treatable by her formulary that she has found it prudent to prohibit any further research into other potential procedures.
One can easily envision various positive outcomes of Mr. Oatman’s experiment. A white neighbor, friend or relative of Robert Branch attends a play about me that they might not have otherwise attended. They witness Mr. Branch putting himself on the line for me, portraying me with dignity and respect, speaking my thoughts and feelings, and their heart opens up in a way it otherwise might not have, especially because their mirror neurons will, in a sense, be tricked. They will be more likely to mirror the white actor’s opinions and emotions due to racial similarity, yet what they’ll in fact be mirroring and empathizing with is me, which is an undeniably beneficial development. One can also envision what might happen when black audience members watch a white man play me. Let us imagine that there are some black folk who may not feel too kindly toward white folk. Let us further imagine these same black folk go to see Robert Branch play me. And let us then imagine that these same black folk come to see the humanity and beauty of Robert Branch’s portrayal of me and can feel in their bones that Mr. Branch respects and admires me. Will this also not be an undeniably beneficial development in bridging racial empathy in America?
Along with psychology, history also supports allowing Mr. Oatman to experiment. From my experience in the civil rights era, I can say there were few greater incitements to white support for our Negro revolution than when white people saw a white man or woman walking alongside us as we marched for justice. As I said, I used to call this the “beloved community.” It included such white folk as Robert Graetz, a Lutheran minister, who worked with me in the early days during the bus boycott in Montgomery. It included Viola Gregg Liuzzo, who came down to Alabama in March 1965 to help our Southern Christian Leadership Conference register black voters, and, of course, the brave Ms. Liuzzo was gunned down by the Ku Klux Klan while driving a black man from Montgomery to Selma. And it included thousands of other white supporters who were sick and tired of their nation not living up to its great ideals. Can we fail to believe that when the media showed pictures of these white supporters, empathy toward the movement increased in white America?
Yes, psychology and history support Mr. Oatman’s experimentations, but this is not to say that our theatrical elite are incorrect in believing that the disease of lack of racial empathy can be cured through a black man playing me. They are correct in that. However, they are incorrect in believing that disallowing a white man from playing me will not simply re-infect more of the disease into the body they are trying to treat. They are incorrect in preventing research that may in fact lead to a cure for a different aspect of the disease. And they are incorrect in asserting that from their lofty offices only they themselves know so fully the dynamics of the disease that no further inquiry is needed in such provincial locales as Cleveland, Ohio. And so to Mr. Oatman’s experiment, I say amen, a thousand times amen.
At one point in her argument. Ms. Hall asks a rhetorical question: “We live in a world where a director wants to measure the impact of King’s words coming from a black body versus a white one. Does this director think that an audience wouldn’t accept them from a black body?” Now, I don’t sense anyone, even Ms. Hall herself, would actually accuse Mr. Oatman of thinking that an audience wouldn’t accept my words coming from a black body. Mr. Oatman has dedicated much of his theatrical life to presenting black words in black bodies and to mentoring black theater artists, so Ms. Hall’s accusing him of something that only a white racist could feel is not only bad argumentation, it is insulting. Indeed, it seems much more sound and respectful to take Mr. Oatman at his word, which is that he was exploring “issues of ownership and authenticity” by researching the question, “Can a prominent American be performed by another American or does it have to be an African-American who portrays him?” Why can’t the American theater industry take Mr. Oatman at his word and allow him the freedom to explore his interests? I frankly find it most difficult to abide their dismissal of a black man’s creative instincts.
Looking back, I can say that an airing of questions regarding racial ownership and authenticity was a large part of what we in the civil rights movement were fighting for. Yes, of course, first and foremost we were fighting for black people to finally be handed the same legal rights as whites, but ideologically we were asking questions of ownership and authenticity: Who owns America? Who is an authentic American? Can a black man speak for white Americans? Can white Americans follow a black man? Can white people be a part of justice for black people, or are white people in some sense inherently racist? Can a black person seek justice simply as an American, or must their fight be ever viewed through their blackness? These were the questions that made the civil rights era so important, contentious, and successful, because in facing them, many white Americans slowly began to realize it was in their moral and national interest to answer them lovingly and inclusively, and thus racial separation – both physical and mental – began to break down.
In short, I feel compelled to say that by swiftly condemning Mr. Oatman’s theatrical experiment, the power-brokers of the theatrical industrial complex showed their hand for what it is: a brutal masquerade to preserve market share. It is brutal because rather than raising money for Mr. Oatman to hire a black actor or opening up a discussion on economics and race in the theater, they viciously threw Michael Oatman, Robert Branch, and Cristal Christian under the bus of intolerant opinion. It is a masquerade because its conclusions are built on false premises, such as Mr. Oatman not believing an audience would accept my words from a black man, such as there being one and only one way to address a lack of racial empathy in America, such as Mr. Oatman’s actions being synonymous with past acts of inappropriate white appropriation. Finally, it is about market share because these ensconced industrial elites are clearly seeking to protect their status and investments in American theater that are in part dependent on the wide-spread acceptance of their hostile, isolationist position concerning who should and should not be cast and for what reasons, and they clearly have no intention of letting that status and those investments be threatened, even if it means disseminating prejudice and unleashing calumny on less fortunate artists. Yet to those who carried out such public damming in the name of preserving their holdings, I say in the words of Christ, “if you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.”
Yes, it is a brutal masquerade to preserve elite market share. But, my friends, I’m afraid I feel compelled to say that it is even more than that, for I consider it in fact a self-serving, disrespectful perpetuation of the same racist principles that not only opposed and eventually took my life, but that also took the life of the black leader who is in fact the true ideological forefather of the cultural nationalists who have overtaken the boards of our nation’s most important performance venues in the name of carrying out an ethical cleansing.
I fully understand that there are those who will consider my claim that the actions of Ms. Hall and her allies against Mr. Oatman are a conceptual extension of the racist forces I faced to be shocking, unacceptable and perhaps even unlike me. However, I believe I am speaking the truth and I believe I am being myself in calling out against an action that goes against everything I fought for during my time in the civil rights movement because it limits the freedoms of certain people due solely to their race and promotes a segregationist agenda that tragically adopts the playbook of the white bigots with whom I so frequently clashed. And to support that claim I will have to return to the devil.
As I pointed out, Ms. Hall says in her letter: “Now, the devil’s lawyer will say, ‘But Katori, we are all human beings and we should be able to step into the shoes of other humans who are unlike us. That’s how we can eradicate racism!’” Let us look more closely at this phrase “the devil’s lawyer.” The traditional term, of course, is devil’s advocate, but I respect Ms. Hall, an innovative writer, for spinning a neologism. Devil’s advocate means someone who, given a certain argument, takes an opinion they do not necessarily agree with for the sake of debate. But, of course, this could not be what Ms. Hall means by devil’s lawyer, since she is clearly depicting the voice of someone who does in fact believe in their opinion. No, it becomes clear that Ms. Hall is not using the phrase “devil’s lawyer” as a mere synonym of devil’s advocate, for her use of it is not accurate, and I am certain that if there is one thing to which we can accredit the verbally and logically gifted Ms. Hall, it is the accurate use of words. Why then does Ms. Hall use this curious phrase, “the devil’s lawyer”?
While the civil rights era in which I partook is today remembered by some as a unified black uprising in search of social justice, the black community was in fact sharply split on how to best achieve that righteous mission. On the one side was my movement, which was based on the concept of advancing civil rights through nonviolent civil disobedience that had its basis in the concepts of love and forgiveness that were central to my Christian beliefs. On the other side was the movement, variously referred to as Black Power or the Nation of Islam, which trafficked, in my openly public opinion, in concepts of violence, exclusion and hate. The partition between our movements was never absolute, many individuals identified with each of us over the course of the struggle, there was a rich intersection of discourse between the two sides, and I was always in support of our reconciliation for the greater good, but there was a split, and it was serious enough for me to say at one point:
“In the final analysis the weakness of Black Power is its failure to see that the black man needs the white man and the white man needs the black man. However much we may try to romanticize the slogan, there is no separate black path to power and fulfillment that does not intersect white paths, and there is no separate white path to power and fulfillment, short of social disaster, that does not share that power with black aspirations for freedom and human dignity. We are bound together in a single garment of destiny. The language, the cultural patterns, the music, the material prosperity, and even the food of America are an amalgam of black and white.”
I was called upon to speak on this topic because, at the time, the Nation of Islam was preaching a separatist and violent position vis-à-vis whites. For instance, its most prominent leader, Malcolm X, called non-violence “the philosophy of the fool” and espoused a version of black nationalism that called for blacks to detach from white culture. He also told Louis Lomax a mere two years before his assassination: “Only a man who is ashamed of what he is will marry out of his race. There has to be something wrong when a man or a woman leaves his own people and marries somebody of another kind.”
But let us now get to the devil. In the same interview, Mr. Lomax says to Malcolm X: “I have heard you [call the white man the devil] a thousand times, but it always jolts me. Why do you call the white man a devil?” To which Brother Malcolm replies:
“Because that’s what he is. What do you want me to call him, a saint? Anybody who rapes, and plunders, and enslaves, and steals, and drops hell bombs on people… anybody who does these things is nothing but a devil…history rewards all research. And history fails to record one single instance in which the white man –as a people–did good. They have always been devils; they always will be devils, and they are about to be destroyed. The final proof that they are devils lies in the fact that they are about to destroy themselves. Only a devil–and a stupid devil at that–would destroy himself!”
There it is, that word, devil. Now, Malcolm X was one of the most powerful and perspicacious speakers on race in America, and if Malcolm X picked a racial slur, you could be sure it was the one with the most fire-power behind it. In fact, “devil” became, during my time on earth, the most effective and resonant black racial slur for whites, perhaps because, as it was said of the slavery era, “the white man took the world and gave the Negro Jesus.” When all you have is Jesus because someone took everything else, you name that someone devil. The word “devil” resonated with black folks by providing them with the kind of deep, existentially demeaning connotations possessed by the N-word. Both words imply a kind of inherent inferiority, an irreversible moral corruption, and the implication of having fallen from the grace of God. Thus, devil became the most powerful black racist slur for whites. And there it is, front and center, as the very word Ms. Hall uses to stereotype the people who oppose her decision that only a black person shall play me.
On February 21, 1965, almost three years before my assassination by a white man whose racist principles led him to believe that I was such a threat to white power that I needed to die, Malcolm X was assassinated by a black man whose racist principles led him to believe that Brother Malcolm was such a threat to black progress that he needed to die. In short, both of us were essentially assassinated for the same thing, and it is called “the bloody coin of racist principle.” And I must say that I have returned from heaven and decided to take so much of your time on this topic because, sadly, I see that coin still being chased after to this day, for by assassinating the characters of three working class heroes of varied race because a black man wasn’t playing me, the theatrical powers-that-be proved that the imaginary devil in their minds has prevented them from seeing what has long been staring them right in the face: a black man was playing me, and his name was Michael Oatman.
Ms. Hall says near the end of her letter that the one thing that most broke her heart is that those who saw the white version of me were robbed of the opportunity to experience the exquisite privilege to be in the Lorraine Motel, Room 306, with an extraordinary ordinary black man whose brown skin carries with it a certain history and experience.
I’m sorry your heart is broken, Ms. Hall. I can genuinely understand why you felt as you did. But because I respect your freedom to express the values of segregation, I hope you will respect my decision to express the values of integration, for in the end, my heart is broken too.
My heart is broken because those who shamed and suppressed Michael Oatman have used my name in vain. Just as those who opposed me, be they black or white, they seek to close America’s festering racial wounds with the whetted blade of separatism. And beneath this rash act runs a deep river of denial toward the soul source of their inspiration, for even when faced with the most withering white hatred and violence in my march for black freedom, I sang of the “beloved community.” I sang with white supporters and welcomed them in the streets. I sang as I reached out to white good, rather than recoiling against white evil. I sang of black people working together, not working against one another. Yes, they have used my name in vain, for they have preached my message, yet they have betrayed my gospel, in which it is written: “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Mr. Oatman understands this.
My heart is broken because these forces of discrimination have adulterated my love into hate. As I said amidst the searing fusillade of intolerant malice, “We have before us the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization.” Yet into my embracing arms they have thrown the ticking bomb of rejection. They have slapped a “closed” sign on my grand human experiment so that they themselves can dictate its results, which so manipulated are imperatively false. They have let resentment rule their reason, grudge overgrow their compassion, they have shut the doors on the open invitation that is love. But exclusion justified is justice excluded. Mr. Oatman understands this.
My heart is broken because I have been returned to the prisons, and in my acrid cell, which was always opened by a white specter that now comes drenched in black, I weep for those who may never live through me. Ms. Hall praised in her letter a Russian production of her play that “bent over backwards” to find two black actors, and I share in her admiration of their efforts, yet I cannot help but weep for the others that are now locked up in the bleak slums of their cultural apartheid: for the white Russian homosexual, beaten and demeaned by zealous bigots, who may never live through me; for the Saudi Arabian woman, strangled in the fragile, heavy hands of misogyny, who may never live through me; for the Mexican student whose friends and family have been beheaded by vicious drug cartels, who may never live through me; and yes, I even weep for the straight white man of America, who has perhaps been bashed by a demented parent, disfigured by bullying peers, ridiculed by the supposedly superior, stepped upon by various social forces, and even victimized by the hounding thoughts that have been an overbearing portion of his consciousness since before he even met the nurturing sun. I weep as well for this, and for all, human beings, for all are hurting, so why deny them the chance to live thru me? Free me from your prison; free them from your bias; free the world from your rejection of it. If you love me, you will live through me. Mr. Oatman understands this.
My heart is broken because the catalyst of the unanimous “YES!” that rang out loud and proud to Ms. Hall’s letter was a black man exercising his right to artistic freedom. When experimentation is suppressed, truth has no remedy but to escape through the tunnel of deception, and soon all society is rife with the criminality it sought to resolve. By forcing conformity, you breed deformity. By shaming those who stray from your ideals, you shame yourself with the ideals that have strayed from the difficult yet essential discipline of open collaboration. The uses of non-violent freedom must be absolute or they are absolutely useless and themselves become violent through the contentions they breed. If a black man exploring within and without himself is not at the essence of blackness, then blackness is a sham identity, a closed container of aborted revelation, it is, in the words of Langston Hughes, a dream deferred. Mr. Oatman understands this.
My heart is broken because those who condemned Michael Oatman have irresponsibly chosen to defy a just law, namely the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, that guarantees freedom of speech and assembly, by putting forth restrictions that prevent other human beings from doing something that offends their sensitivities. How is their action any different in spirit than the white racist tyrants of the South who justified segregation by claiming their sensitivities would be offended by having to swim, eat, and school with negroes? Just as Mr. Oatman’s detractors claim that their actions are in support of the dignity and livelihoods of black folk, so those white racists claimed for white folk. When the Alabama courts handed down an injunction against peaceful assembly in order to thwart our protest movement in Birmingham, the decision to flout that injunction was made only after extensive deliberation and it was made because we felt it was our duty to violate an unjust law that had been used countless times to prevent justified progress. And while these condemners are hiding behind the claim of “playwrights’ rights,” I will remind this generation that the white racists hid behind the claim of “states’ rights.” I agree that Alabama should have the right to govern its own school system in principle, but when that principle is used to justify actions that lead to black children being condemned to far inferior schools, that principle has met its limits and must be violated by a higher principle, namely the principle of freedom and justice. The claim of playwrights’ rights in this case has only one intention, and that is to segregate the play, and because that would not be acceptable in a white playwright, it should not be acceptable in a black one. In other words, the the opposers of Oatman are walking a dangerous line, for any time you claim special exemption from the principle that we must not limit others’ freedoms, you grant that exemption to others who may then use it to limit your own. In the words of Matthew, you cannot serve two masters. You cannot achieve justice through injustice. Mr. Oatman understands this.
My heart is broken because those shaming Mr. Oatman are using the rage, violence, dogmatics and separatism of the Black Nationalist movement to crush the love, non-violence, pragmatics and inclusiveness of my “beloved community” movement. Be it for despair at the sluggish pace of progress, a keen sense of protracted cultural theft, the common tug that the forces of rage and envy bring to bear naturally upon human consciousness – be it for any of these, and I understand the heaviness and validity of them all, it is still backwardness, futility, and self-destruction. What was once a careful discernment between white supremacist and white supporter has become a blanketing assertion that all whites are by necessity inculcated into the white power structure and therefore bear certain responsibilities bred by intrinsic, institutionalized iniquity that render them forbidden to speak of, know about, or participate in co-determining the dynamics of the culture they share in. This is as bigoted and illogical as the claim that all black people are by necessity guilty of and must answer for the crimes of a few black people. Yet this is what the so-called cultural appropriation movement claims in the name of racial progress, which is in fact a cultural segregation movement in the name of racial purity, and I long for it to end for the good of us all. The white woman appropriating the intricacies of Baldwin; the black man appropriating the sentiments of Emerson; the white girl appropriating the mastery of LeBron James; the black boy appropriating the elegance of Snow White – That’s what we do in America – we play each other.
And yes, I am aware that many of us are longing desperately for great inclusion in our culture’s representation. When I was alive, we longed to vote and go to school. Now we long to be in movies and sign publishing deals. And there is nothing wrong and everything right with these longings. But it is a far cry from trying to make it in America through hard work to working hard to prevent others from making it. I say the solution is to economically empower all people and to let all people produce, publish and play as much as they want, for then and only then shall there be room for everyone at the cultural table.
Some will say that a history of oppression justifies a future of suppression. But just because some white folks have done grievous injury to all black folks doesn’t mean that all white folks should not be allowed to indulge in their private urge to envy, emulate, and embody certain black folks. We must not without due process condemn an individual to an opposing group in order to empower our own group, for in doing so our group becomes an enemy of individuality and thus empowers the opposition. The white actor who played me may have been the son of one of the white people who marched with me, gave bail money to me, took beatings like me. Ought he not have the opportunity to play me? Or ought not white people who supported me or even did not support me have the experience of viewing an experiment in which a white man plays me? Might this bolster my supporters and even sway my detractors? And ought not black people have the experience of viewing a white man play me in order to possibly enjoy or at least contemplate the odd harmonies that dissonance plucks in their hearts? This kind of intersectionality is what makes America such a thrilling, unique place: it is our crazy boogie, our festival of compliments, our national salvation. Mr. Oatman understands this.
But ultimately, my heart is broken because those who hold it in their power to determine who is on and who is off the boards have failed to practice what I preached. I have no doubt that they have read my works, that they have researched my life, and that my entire history of struggle moved them deeply. I have no doubt that they want the very best for the black community. But I must doubt how deeply they have embossed that legacy into their perspectives. I must doubt that my life of peaceful resistance held much sway in their quick decision to aggressively restrict. I must doubt that they have gone deeper than my skin to touch my soul and feel its trembling for the freedoms they deny. Just as Christians can espouse the life of their generous savior and yet themselves be ungenerous, their actions have betrayed my life and the convictions that made it meaningful, and when you act in defiance of what you worship, the jury of the world has no choice but to sentence you for hypocrisy. They took my words into their eyes, yet they failed to offer them a home in their hearts. They presented my character on stage, yet they failed to offer it a role in their lives. They provided a fictional account of my ideals, yet they failed to make those ideals their reality. I therefore urge all Americans to follow the example of Michael Oatman: stop playing me, and be me.
Some will say I have come from heaven to sow dissension on earth, but they will have forgotten that I had many ideological differences with other civil rights leaders during my lifetime who thought I was either too radical and swift or too gentle and slow. Those who opposed these discussions as destructive dissension were misguided, for dissension is simply the unfit person’s lethargic defense against invigorating debate. Some will say I have grown out of touch during my long sojourn in the sky with the conditions on the ground, but to paraphrase TS Eliot: art never improves, but the material is never quite the same. Though the material situation has changed, the issues of my time are largely the issues of this time – equal protection before the law and equal opportunity in the economy – yet even then there were fierce debates over methods and goals, and I consistently placed myself on the side of aspiring to present an open roster to those who would join my team, for we must free ourselves of demons, or surely we shall be demonized. Some will say that by taking the side of the devil in Ms. Hall’s imagination that I am still being played by a white man, but if that is the case, then even Ms. Hall herself could be accused of such as she basks in the support of those mostly white benefactors who come armed in the holy posts of assistance yet who in fact could be easily accused of covertly or unconsciously pursuing their financial and racial interests by encouraging black people to indulge in targets and tactics that subvert the positive public relations of their movement because they trample on the same core American liberties for which they appear to be agitating. Finally, some will say that the cultural experimentation I am espousing in support of Mr. Oatman will just create more opportunities for white folks. Against such an accusation I feel my loudest defense is to let my record stand silent. But I will say this: I understand the pain of the black race. That pain met me at birth, that pain gave me a reason to live, and that pain took my life away far too early. Had it not, I would probably have been alive to see myself depicted on stage by all kinds of amazing people, a pleasure I sorely wish I’d had. But if my habitation in that pain has any lesson, it is this: we must convert our pain into love, for only love can bring us peace. Imagine, Ms. Hall, if all were to take your position and restrict racial mixing in their creations. To paraphrase Louis Armstrong, what a not wonderful world that would be.
I once spoke thus of the distant day of equality for which we initiated the Negro Revolution:
“This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream — a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man’s skin determines the content of his character; a dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone, but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of the human personality.”
Yes, my friends, while Bull Connor was closing down the parks of Birmingham so he didn’t have to watch black and white children playing together, I was having a dream. And now that Katori Hall and her allies have closed down her play so they don’t have to watch black and white adults playing together, I am come to say to you, I still have a dream.
I have a dream that the creative spaces of our world can hold adamantly to the difficult creed of total freedom and experimentation – free of the outside influences of political assessment, industry advancement, cultural avarice, or social demand – and that the primal abandon of play that seeks to discover every form of fantasy, no matter how dangerous or uncomforting, can finally render itself immune to the icy, muting, harsh infections of puritanism and segregation that too often throughout human history decorously and zealously dance their way into our dramatic arenas in the name of social progress only to later be revealed as a secret operation looking to control those creative spaces in the name of a scornful, shrill and deadening ideological agenda.
I have a dream that no person seeking to live a story not forced upon them at birth shall be judged unethical for living that story due to the color of their skin, the manifestation of their gender, the actions of their nation, the scope of their abilities, or the abusers of their peaceful beliefs, and that we shall soon awaken from that long planetary nightmare of limiting innocent individuals to other-determined scripts.
I have a dream that we will honor the legacy of Oscar Ritchie by supporting inclusion, and not exclusion, in our academic and artistic institutions.
In short, I have a dream that all the people, who are so much more than black and white, will choose the wide bright thoroughfare of Michael Oatman, not the narrow dark alley of Katori Hall, for in the former there is the possibility of trust and affection, while in the latter there is only the inevitability of fear and aggression.
Yes, I have a dream today.
That America’s artistic leaders, whose very mission must be to support theatrical experimentation, will recant their self-serving, disrespectful attacks on Michael Oatman, Robert Branch and Cristal Christian – whether carried out through reticence or uproar – by issuing a statement in defiance of segregation in the arts put forth in the spirit of the lineage of hate that I opposed and in support of free cultural experimentation in the spirit of the lineage of love that I embodied and ultimately died for.
Yes, I have a dream today.
That every child around this world will know that when they grow up, they can go as me to The Mountaintop in Katori Hall’s beautiful, important play.
My friends, I have been deeply inspired by what I have seen happen in black America since my departure. Just as parents who can’t judge how much their little baby grows over time because they view the process microscopically day after day, yet an uncle who has not visited in two years can say in all earnestness “you grew two feet over night!”, I can see how tall and powerful and healthy black America has become. I see black surgeons, black entertainers, black mayors, black police chiefs, black principals, black philosophers, black teachers, black doctors, black waiters, black actors, black firemen, black generals, even a black president, yes, everywhere I look I see black people being something it was almost impossible to be when I was around: people. Not people of a certain color, but just people. Aspiring, experimenting, successful people who are actively engaged in their private work as well as the work of our nation, so beautifully summarized by President Lincoln:
“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan–to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
This is the work that we must do, my friends, for while we can revel in our victories, we must also admit: America remains a nation plagued by violence, prejudice, and inequality. Not all black people feel they can just be people, and that is a problem we must all work together to fix. And while many are the declamations as to the causes of and solutions to these failings, I will not upstage the current generation by offering my conceivably outdate opinions other than to say this: perhaps, just perhaps, at least a few things might get better if everyone simply started playing me. Imagine it. How could someone playing me commit violence? How could someone playing me act on prejudice? How could someone playing me vote for inequality? How could anyone playing me do anything other than grow my beloved community?
And so I say to you, the children of the earth, go, and play me. Play me in your home. Play me in your workplace. Play me in the voting booth. Play me in the streets. Play me in the fields. For it is only by playing me that you shall reach the mountaintop. Some may ask, but why should I go to the mountaintop? It’s so high up, and it’s so hard to get to! I know that the journey is hard, my children, but there is only one way: you must go to the mountaintop so that you can see that the river is nigh. Yes, you must go to the mountaintop to see that the river of freedom, equality and justice among the races of America is nigh. And you must go to the mountaintop not only to gain the hope and second-wind this river vision will provide you, but you must go to the mountaintop to raise yourselves above the smoke of the current struggle so you can gain the perspective you need to navigate successfully to that river.
For in that perspective, you will see that the river is nigh not only due to the incredible black progress that I behold, but because the current struggle is distinct from the first, in that black Americans are not entirely positioned on one side of an internecine white hostility. And the river is nigh because this struggle is distinct from the second, in that black Americans are not standing up in unified opposition to a solidly segregationist white contingent. No, the river is nigh because this is a motley struggle, an ideological struggle, a struggle in which race plays no devotional role. One may say, but Dr. King, this struggle is entirely about race, but I would say no, this struggle is entirely about ideas, for members of both races find themselves situated on opposite sides of the strife not due to an inherited racial inheritance, but for the sake of defending their dearly held and consciously developed belief that cultural integration, not cultural segregation, is best for the future of all Americans. And that is why the river is nigh.
Yes, my friends, the river is nigh because people of all races, not only in America, but around the world, are starting to play me. And by playing me they are being lifted upward from their low terrestrial seat and they are flying to my wide celestial vantage and they see that we can soon be at the river if we just walk downhill without stumbling upon the stones and roots that have tripped up far too many generations in far too many other nations. We must walk toward it in confidence yet with caution; we must walk toward it in the eagerness, not the madness, of our thirst; we must walk toward it compelled by the visions of sharing in its cool, fulfilling waters, not by the vengeances of controlling who shall slake themselves therein. Yes, we must walk toward it in the courage of freedom knowing that if we can keep our senses about us as we look forward to long-denied satisfaction while all our senses are reeling from that oppressive past of long-imposed dissatisfaction, then we shall be able to laugh on its shores, drink in its waters, and bathe in its pools. And when we are there, we will leave behind our songs of “wait ‘till Jesus comes down by the riverside,” and we will rejoice, yay, we will rejoice as one, for we have met the river Jordan, for we have crossed into campground, for we have shared the gospel feast of the promised land, for we have walked into heaven, taken a seat, and cast our crown at the mighty beloved’s feet, and just as Brother Malcolm late in his young life crossed over the ocean and saw that the devil is in fact partial to no race, it is then that every person no matter their color shall play me, join me, be me, and together we shall sing that spirit song:
I’ve got peace like a river in my soul
I’ve got a river in my soul
I’ve got joy like a fountain in my soul
I’ve got a fountain in my soul
