The Reverends Emmett G. Price III and Irene Monroe joined Boston Public Radio to talk about race, history and civil rights on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
Last week, protesters took to Interstate 93 to demonstrate in support of the "Black Lives Matter" movement. The protest temporarily brought morning rush to a complete standstill. The two reverends were asked whether Dr. King would've supported drastic protests like the one on the interstate. Rev. Price thought so.
"Dr. King was an ordinary person who was called to do extraordinary work. (...) Dr. King is us, and we're all called to do extraordinary work in this society," Price said. "He would've been on I-93 with those protestors." Price noted Dr. King struggled with depression much of his life.
"And some infidelities. He was an everyday man," Rev. Monroe added. Rev. Monroe couldn't imagine Dr. King putting his arm in a barrel of concrete, as some of last week's protesters did.
"This is 50 years since the Voting Rights Act" was enacted, Monroe said. "We have really dropped the ball. (...) We need to have that conversation, (...) and today would be a good day to start that."
Monroe called the protest effective but ill-conceived, because it disrupted life-saving services that depend on freeway access, like ambulances.
The reverends addressed possible historical inaccuracies in the movie Selma, a blockbuster starring Oprah Winfrey, David Oyelowo and others. The movie covers the civil rights movement in the 1960s, but has been criticized for its characterization of the relationship between Pres. Johnson and Dr. King.
"If we taught this history then we wouldn't have to go to the movies" Rev. Monroe said. "It bothered me that we had to (...) see it in a movie theater." Monroe said movies do have an important role to play. "The reason Django [Unchained] worked very well for a whole swath of people is that it did what it's supposed to do. It's fantasy," Monroe said. "One of the reasons we go to the movies is to escape."
"Let's look at Ken Burns's Jazz series," Price said. "The last chapter is '1968 and beyond,' as if there was no creative innovation beyond 1968! (...) Art should be a conversation-starter."
Monroe mentioned the omission of Frederick Douglass in Lincoln as another example. "Where was Frederick Douglass? The reason why we're upset about LBJ is because it's more current."
>> Revs. Emmett G. Price III and Irene Monroe are regular guests for "All Revved Up" every Monday on Boston Public Radio. Price is a professor of music at Northeastern University, and the author of The Black Church and Hip Hop Culture. Monroe is a syndicated religion columnist whose work appears at Huffington Post and Bay Windows.
