On March 26, 1964, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. met for the first and only time in Washington, D.C. Less than a year later, Malcolm was dead, the victim of an assassin’s bullet, ending any possibility of a permanent thaw between two of America’s most influential Black leaders.
The two had very different approaches to the Civil Rights Movement
Both men were born in the 1920s, sons of politically active preacher fathers. King grew up in a stable, relatively comfortable middle-class home in Georgia. His father was an NAACP organizer and leader, and King credited the loving atmosphere of his youth for his belief in non-violent, civil disobedience as the means to attack racial prejudice in America.
Malcolm (born Malcolm Little), experienced poverty and violence at a young age. His father, a supporter of Marcus Garvey, died when Malcolm was a child, at the hands of what his family believed to be white nationalists. His mother was institutionalized several years later. Although highly intelligent, Malcolm dropped out of school and eventually drifted towards a life of crime. Arrested at the age of 21, he was introduced to the Nation of Islam while in prison. The group was also influenced by Garvey’s theories, and following his conversion and release from prison, Malcolm became one of the most prominent disciples of Elijah Muhammad, the group’s leader.
King and Malcolm clashed over the best tactics to end racial discrimination and prejudice. Malcolm was highly critical of King’s non-violent approach, believing King’s actions to be too slow-moving and too accommodating to white Americans and going so far as to refer to him as “a 20-century Uncle Tom.” Malcolm called for a more militant approach, achieving equality and Black liberation by “any means necessary.” King attacked what he considered Malcolm’s dangerous radicalism, writing, “Fiery, demagogic oratory in the Black ghettos, urging Negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence, as he has done, can reap nothing but grief.”
Martin Luther King's Most Inspirational Quotes
1_Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers a speech to a crowd of approximately 7,000 people on May 17, 1967 at UC Berkeley's Sproul Plaza in Berkeley, California. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives:Getty Images)
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Earlier attempts at a meeting between the two went nowhere
Despite their differences, Malcolm did make some effort to try to bring King and other civil rights leaders together. In July 1963, Malcolm invited King to join a rally in Harlem. He called for a period of racial unity to fight white oppression, writing, “If capitalistic Kennedy and communistic Khrushchev can find something in common on which to form a United Front despite their tremendous ideological differences, it is a disgrace for Negro leaders not to be able to submerge our ‘minor’ differences in order to seek a common solution to a common problem posed by a Common Enemy.”
King never responded to the invitation, and neither he nor other more moderate civil rights leaders attended the meeting. In response, Malcolm intensified his attacks on King, particularly over the March on Washington held just weeks later, and the bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama, church that killed four African American girls that September.
MLK and Malcolm X's historic meeting lasted just minutes
On March 8, 1964, disillusioned with Muhammad’s private life and angered over the group’s refusal to take a more active role in the fight for civil rights, Malcolm publicly broke up with the Nation of Islam.
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The Assassination of Malcolm X
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On March 25, King and Malcolm were both on Capitol Hill watching a Senate hearing regarding legislation aimed at ending segregation in public places and racial discrimination in employment. The bill had been proposed by President John F. Kennedy following intense lobbying by King and others and was being shepherded through Congress by President Lyndon Johnson, despite harsh opposition by many southern elected officials.
As King was wrapping up a press conference, he was approached by Malcolm, and the two shook hands and exchanged greetings. As cameras clicked away, Malcolm expressed his desire to become more active, saying, “I’m throwing myself into the heart of the civil rights struggle.” Then, just as quickly as it began, the brief meeting between the two legends was over. Four days later, opponents launched one of the longest filibusters in U.S. history to defeat the legislation, but it eventually passed and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law on July 2.
