Malcolm X, though, wanted to be more than a cultural revolutionary. He broke with the Nation of Islam in March 1964 and announced plans to start a black political organization.
He reached out to King and other civil rights leaders. In 1965, Malcolm X traveled to Selma, Alabama, where King was leading a campaign, to offer support.
"Brother Malcolm was definitely making an outreach to some civil rights leaders," says A. Peter Bailey, an original member of the group Malcolm X founded, The Organization of Afro-American Unity, and a friend of Malcolm X. "He believed that the one who would be most responsive would be Dr. King."
The Muslim leader had developed an appreciation for King, Bailey says.
"He had come to believe that King believed in what he was doing," Bailey says. "He believed in nonviolence; it just wasn't a show. He developed respect for him. I heard him say you have to give respect to men who put their lives on the line."
Malcolm X may have been willing to join the civil rights cause. But he never subscribed to nonviolence or abandoned his Muslim faith, Bailey says.
"The whole idea that he had become a token integrationist at the end of his life -- that's a bunch of jive," Bailey says.
Martin moves toward Malcolm
King's movement toward Malcolm began as he shifted the civil rights movement to the North, friends and scholars say.
During the last three years of his life, King became more radical. He talked about eliminating poverty and providing a guaranteed annual income for all U.S. citizens. He came out against the Vietnam War, and said American society would have to be restructured.
He also veered into Malcolm X's rhetorical territory when he started preaching black self-pride, says Pitney.
"King is photographed a number of times in 1967 and '68 wearing a 'Black is Beautiful' button,' " Pitney says.
A year before King died, the journalist David Halberstam even told him he "sounded like a nonviolent Malcolm X," Pitney says.
He had come to believe that King believed in what he was doing
--A. Peter Bailey, friend of Malcolm X
In the epic PBS civil rights series, Coretta Scott King, the civil rights leader's widow, said King never took Malcolm X's biting criticisms of his nonviolence stance personally.
"I know Martin had the greatest respect for Malcolm ...," she said. "I think that if Malcolm had lived, at some point the two would have come closer together and would have been a very strong force."
Young, King's close aide, says King had become more militant near the end of his life.
"It was more radical to deal with poverty than to deal with segregation so, in that sense, it's true," Young says. "But Dr. King never wavered in his commitment to nonviolence. In fact, he was getting stronger in his commitment to nonviolence. It was a more militant nonviolence."
Why they endure
Malcolm X and King never had the chance, though, to explore an alliance.
Malcolm X was assassinated in Harlem in 1965. King was murdered three years later.
Both were 39 at the time of their death. Both had been abandoned by former supporters. And both left virtually no money to their wives and young children because they refused to profit from their activism.
The photo of their meeting endures. It was taken because both men happened to be in the Capitol building that day to listen to politicians debate the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which would later pass.
Author Cone says the picture endures because both men embody the " 'yin and yang' deep in the soul of black America."
Even as King was changing America, he also realized that Malcolm X was changing him.
Posted By: DAVID JOHNSON
Wednesday, August 11th 2010 at 6:37PM
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