Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

Free Thinking

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with artists and thinkers in debates and interviews.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with leading artists and thinkers in extended interview and debate.

Shahidha Bari

Jackie Kay

Fred D'Aguiar

Major Jackson

Zahid Warley

Free Thinking: Martin Luther King, Poets and Political Protest

Martin Luther King, Poets and Political Protest

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Martin Luther King, Poets and Political Protest

Shahidha Bari and guests mark Martin Luther King's visit to Newcastle University in 1967.

Jackie Kay, Fred D'Aguiar, Major Jackson and Kwame Dawes join Shahidha Bari as part of the Freedom City festival marking Martin Luther King's visit to Newcastle University in 1967.

'There are three urgent and indeed great problems that we face today... that is the problem of racism, the problem of poverty and the problem of war.'
The words of Martin Luther King in 1967 when he visited Newcastle upon Tyne to receive an honorary degree. Words that underlie a discussion about poetry and protest which features in the festival marking the 50th anniversary of that visit. The poets Jackie Kay, Fred D'Aguiar and Major Jackson join Shahidha Bari and an audience at Newcastle University to explore the nature of protest poetry and to  launch a  poetry anthology celebrating the spirit of Dr King. 

Producer: Zahid Warley.

MAJOR JACKSON 

Going to Meet the Man 

As if one day, a grand gesture of the brain, an expired 
subscription to silence, a decision raw as a concert
of habaneros on the lips: a renewal to decency like a trash 
can smashing a storefront or the shattering glass face
of a time-clock: where once a man forced to the ground, 
a woman spread-eagled against a wall, where a shot into 
the back of an unarmed teen: finally, a decisive spark,
the engine of action, this civilian standoff: on one side,
a barricade of shields, helmets, batons, and pepper spray: 
on the other, a cocktail of fire, all that is just and good

"Going to Meet the Man" originally published by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. in Holding Company,(c) Major Jackson, 2010 

The Mighty Stream: Poems in Celebration of Martin Luther King edited by Carolyn Forché and Jackie Kay is published by Bloodaxe. 

Photo: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. signs the Degree Roll At Newcastle University after receiving an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree, Newcastle, England, November 14, 1967. Credit: Getty Images.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Free Thinking

Martin Luther King, Poets and Political Protest

Contributors

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3