Following Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X from their formative years to their rich, parallel stories as they shape their identities and become the change they wish to see in the world; the two visionaries ultimately rise to pioneer a movement.
We talked with Genius: MLK / X series executive producers Reggie Rock Bythewood & Gina Prince-Bythewood about weaving these two icons together, their broken beginnings to world changers and what we can learn.
Interviewed for Family Entourage
Family Entourage: I’m so enjoying this series. I’m not all the way through yet, like many others, but thank you for bringing this to audiences and to our attention. I love the way that you tackled it in the sense that it’s Martin Luther King Jr. And Malcolm X kind of simultaneously seeing their rise. Maybe talk to me a little bit about the format.
Reggie Rock Bythewood: Just artistically, it was great fun to just tell their narrative in that way, to just juxtapose their missions and where they differ and where they align, and just really look at their lives in that way, really lean into their personal lives, but also the historical moments. And so there’s great importance with why we decided to do it that way. So artistically, it was fun, and maybe you want to lean into some of the reasons behind it.
Gina Prince-Bythewood: So often growing up you’re taught we either need to follow Martin Luther King Jr. Or follow Malcolm X. And for us, we knew the importance of both of them, not only to us and to the movement, but to each other as well. So to be able to tell that story, and not only the importance of them to each other, but how closely aligned they were. They had the same goal. They just had different ways of going about it, but as they near the end of their lives, they were coming closer and closer to each other. So to be able to put that out there as well was really important to
FE: Usually you tend to know more about one or the other for whatever reason. But as you can see, as the story unfolds, they are so closely intertwined and they both had that same goal that they’ll sacrifice anything if it forwards humanity and the movement, maybe talk to me a little bit about that’s something that we all on some small level, hopefully can emulate the idea of sacrifice for the betterment of, all
GB: The thing that we learned probably more than anything that we talk about is their level of commitment. Both men, they have a vision and they were under such constant threat, and yet they stayed true to that because they saw it. They saw what we needed, they saw what the country needed, they saw how to bring people together, but it was such a constant fight and they were against so much. But they also had these incredible women, not only by their sides, but in front at times, and with Coretta and Betty. And so that collective inspiring each other, pushing each other really pushed forward the movement.
FE: Well, and let’s talk about Coretta and Betty. I love that you delve into who they are too. They’re not just the women behind the men, even though that’s an important aspect of who they are. Talk to me about the decision that went into sharing their backgrounds.
GB: So often, Betty and Coretta are thought of as the wife of or the widow of, and for us, even before we started this process, we knew we wanted to amplify their importance, not only to these men, but to the movement, because they were absolutely influential. But the more that we did research, and we had an incredible think tank at the beginning of this process, which was religious leaders and authors, journalists, activists, people who knew these men and women, the things that we learned, it just made us more and more excited to talk about Betty and Coretta, not only the things you know about ’em, but in hour five, we call it their origin story. You get to see them as girls and where they came from and what created them. So we’re really proud of the way that we’ve been able to amplify their story.
FE: I think you did such a great job of, a lot of times we think of the speeches or we think of the outcome, but we don’t necessarily always highlight or fully understand the struggle that it took to get there. They weren’t both fully strong, capable men at the beginning of their lives. I mean, both of them had very broken beginnings, but we’re able to turn that around. Maybe talk a little bit about how we can all overcome something in our lives in order to then do something better.
RB: They were human beings. That’s a big part of the vision, so that you don’t just see them as icons, but you really see them as human beings that you’re right, had to overcome loss and fear and threats, grief, dealing with mental illness and things that we don’t necessarily think about when we think of these icons, but they were human beings. And so part of our goal is to really make them accessible to our audience in a way that really feels human in a way that really details their humanity. And if you can see them in that way, then you could also see yourself in that way. You can find the Malcolm and Martin and Betty and Coretta within yourself, find your own purpose within yourself, and that’s just a big part of what we hope comes through in all of this work.
FE: Yeah. I’m sure you guys spent so much time in the material. And then just from everything that we’ve all gathered in our own life experiences, is there something that when you’re making this, you were like, this has to be right, we have to do this part right, or this aspect, right, because it’s maybe not as well known as other aspects, or we just feel like this is the catalyst to help people want to change. What kind of were your sentiments or feelings during different high and low points of the film?
GB: I think foremost, we really wanted to get the humanity of all four of them, one front and center, and also right to truly take ’em off the T-shirts and make ’em real. And so to be able to know that both men struggled with mental illness and depression, that was something staggering to us to learn, but something we wanted to put out and get right. But we also wanted to show the joy in their lives as well, the fact that these are two really beautiful love stories. And to be able to amplify that show that they did, even under incredible circumstances, laughed and loved, loved their children, played with their children, danced together the honeymoon night, the fun of that. So yeah, just the humanity was something really important that we wanted to amplify.
RB: And I think also to make it not feel like a period piece that doesn’t feel relevant and tangible. Now, we had so much fun with the music in this narrative, and the times the music will feel period, and other times it’ll feel contemporary because a big part of the vision as well is that we’re saying this narrative, these people, Malcolm Martin, Betty Coretta, all the other people that we meet in this eight hour film, they’re relevant now. Their message is relevant now.
(National Geographic/Richard DuCree)
Genius: MLK / X streams on National Geographic, Disney+ and Hulu with new episodes dropping every week through February
