Review – Dream of a King

Wow! This was simply thrilling stuff.

Martin Luther King Jnr., in his Memphis hotel room, talking to his biographer, recalling his life, his inspirations, his struggles. Taking phone calls: the FBI, harassing him, recording him, bullying him. Stokely Carmichael about the tactics of the great march on Washington, his wife who has heard the FBI tapes.

We are drawn to guys like King because they were never afraid of standing up, confronting racism, taking it on, often at great personal risk, beatings, imprisonment
And of course the shot, we are all there to hear the shot.
He tells us, King, who it was who inspried him. Of course his father, but just as importantly those who went before him unafraid to stand up and be counted. They are mostly women, Rosa Parks and before her the 15 year old Claudette Colvin. 15 years old and she stood up t be counted, refused to move her seat on a Montgomery Alabama public bus, for a white person. Stood up by sitting down, knowing the risks, at 15 years old. The police, the judges, the prisons and the Ku Klux Klan, as often as not, the same people dressed in robes of white. They were legends, these women, and openly he acknowledges their inspiration to him and to the movement itself, to America, to the world.
There are snatches of his great oratory, including from the “I had a dream” speech made here in Memphis, “that my children…….will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Christopher Tajah’s delivery of these lines, and others ,was so strong so powerful, so heart-breaking that there was many a damp eye in the audience.
“Why are you all here” he asks, “you all know the ending”
We do. We are waiting for the shot. We are here for the shot, we are here for Martin Luther King Jnr. and all he stands for.

 

He was in Memphis to give his support to another group of workers that had decided to stand up and be counted. The Bin men of Memphis, the street sweepers, the drain cleaners. Sanitary workers as the Americans called them All of them black, paid poverty wages all them who stood up to be counted and treated fair. “I am a Man” said their banners as they rose up to claim their identity and their place in America, and their place in history.
They probably didn’t need King to continue their dispute or to tell them to stand firm, but they welcomed his support, took him to their hearts.

It is these type of guys, those who take a stand that matter. No hiding behind anonymous twitter accounts, saying brave things but doing nothing. Stand up, is his message across the years. Stand up and be counted.
Of course the shot comes.
Little wonder Christopher Tajah’s performance got a standing ovation. This is not to be missed.