Malcolm X's Birthday: Malcolm X and Dr. King Grew Closer Over Time

Malcolm X would have been 85 years old today had he not been assassinated. With his revolutionary rhetoric, Malcolm took on not only white society, but black leaders as well. Glen Ford, in The Progressive, writes:

Malcolm was the people's surrogate in intra-black politics. He championed the "grassroots" in a black polity dominated by clerics claiming accountability to a "higher" authority and heads of secular organizations largely dependent on "white" subsidies.....At the core of Malcolm's black nationalism was the demand for accountability to the black masses from all those who purport to govern or lead them. The people occupy center stage in Malcolm's political drama, while "Negro leadership" jockeys for white favor and financing.

Malcolm's revolutionary black nationalism is people power, pushing back the oppressor and imposing the popular will on collaborationist "leadership." His relentless critique of the "Big Six" - Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer, John Lewis, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins and Whitney Young - freed the black political conversation from the gags of false unity, empowering the rank and file to demand accountability from their "spokesmen."

But despite their differences, Malcolm X and King were actually growing closer in their ideologies as they both neared the ends of their lives.

CNN writes:

Malcolm X was reaching out to King even before he broke away from the Nation of Islam and embraced Sunni Islam after a pilgrimage to Mecca, says Andrew Young, a member of King's inner circle at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the civil rights group King headed. "Even before his trip to Mecca, Malcolm used to come by the SCLC's office," Young says.
"Unfortunately, Dr. King was never there when he came."

"In the last years of their lives, they were starting to move toward one another," David Howard-Pitney, author of "Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and the Civil Rights Struggle of the 1950s and 1960s" told CNN. "While Malcolm is moderating from his earlier position, King is becoming more militant." Pitney says.

Malcolm X, after leaving the Nation of Islam, reached out to King. He offered his support by traveling to Selma, Alabama for a 1965 civil rights march. He had gained a respect for King because he believed that he was risking his life for what he believed in.

"He had come to believe that King believed in what he was doing," said Peter Bailey, an original member of the group Malcolm X founded, The Organization of Afro-American Unity. "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."

King also shifted from his early non-violence rhetoric. He earned the scorn of the President by criticizing the Vietnam War. And then, like Malcolm, King got revolutionary and began attacking the broader causes of oppression and seeking commonality. King began organizing a poor people's march.

"It was more radical to deal with poverty than to deal with segregation so, in that sense, it's true," Andrew Young told CNN. "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."

King also started wearing a 'Black is Beautiful' button, said Pitney. That was clearly the language of the Black Power movement.

The ability to live and learn is such an important lesson here. Malcolm X learned to respect someone that he once handily dismissed. King obviously saw the importance of what Malcolm X was trying to do by improving black people's opinions of themselves. Could their have been a President Obama without the contributions of King and Malcolm X?

We need more of this type of boldness in our community. We should not be ashamed to question people who want to speak for all black people. We should question the motives of people who fashion themselves as leaders. Are you making backroom deals? Are organizations trying to live off of their names? Although you have a proud legacy from the 1960s, what are you doing today to better the lives of African-Americans?

"King was a political revolutionary. Malcolm was a cultural revolutionary," James Cone, author of "Martin & Malcolm & America" told CNN. "Malcolm changed how black people thought about themselves. Before Malcolm came along, we were all Negroes. After Malcolm, he helped us become black."