Malcolm X (1925 � 1965)

By John Ballard

CNN marked the birthday of Malcolm X yesterday with this remembrance.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was leaving a news conference one afternoon when a tall man with a coppery complexion stepped out of the crowd and blocked his path.

Malcolm X, the African-American Muslim leader who once called King "Rev. Dr. Chicken-wing," extended his hand and smiled.

"Well, Malcolm, good to see you," King said after taking Malcolm X's hand.

"Good to see you," Malcolm X replied as both men broke into huge grins while a gaggle of photographers snapped pictures of their only meeting.

That encounter on March 26, 1964, lasted only a minute. But a photo of that meeting has tantalized scholars and supporters of both men for more than 45 years.

As the 85th birthday of Malcolm X is marked on Wednesday, history has freeze-framed him as the angry black separatist who saw whites as blue-eyed devils.

Yet near the end of his life, Malcolm X was becoming more like King -- and King was becoming more like him.

Those of us immersed in the civil rights movement in the Sixties have vivid memories of the many splits within the movement. It is more than an accident of geography that many different groups were involved -- NAACP, CORE, SCLC, SNCC, SSOC, SDS, various Human Relations Councils, Black Panthers, Nation of Islam and Jesse Jackson's Rainbow PUSH Coalition that later emerged.

The movement was by no means as neatly split as historical revisionists would lead us to believe. The monster of racism was serious enough that any and all efforts to overcome it were needed, if not always welcomed by all in the fight. But at some level I think the leadership, as reflected in this CNN snapshot, understood and appreciated that they were all working to overcome a common foe.

Malcolm X and King were both killed in their thirties. We will never know what the course of events may have unfolded had they lived. But Malcolm X's conversion to Sunni Islam was a prescient development that has yet to attract the attention of historians in light of events of the last decade.

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.

Malcolm X's willingness to work with King who used direct action non-violence is notable. One of the tragedies of our time is that these two men were taken out too soon.
It bears repeating, however, that Malcolm X became and remained a Sunni Muslim.

(Thanks to Kat for catching this link.)