What did Martin Luther King and Malcolm X think of each other?

According to David Howard-Pitney, author of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and the Civil Rights Struggle of the 1950s and 1960s, King and Malcolm X were moving towards an appreciation of each other's positions towards the end of their lives. They only met each other once—in 1964, when they were both in Washington, D.C. to hear the debate in the Senate on the Civil Rights bill.

In 1964, Malcolm X broke away from...

According to David Howard-Pitney, author of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and the Civil Rights Struggle of the 1950s and 1960s, King and Malcolm X were moving towards an appreciation of each other's positions towards the end of their lives. They only met each other once—in 1964, when they were both in Washington, D.C. to hear the debate in the Senate on the Civil Rights bill.

In 1964, Malcolm X broke away from the Nation of Islam, and he became interested in making connections with civil rights leaders. His travels in Mecca in 1964 caused him to think differently about being a Muslim, as he saw Muslims who were international and interracial in make up, and he increasingly responded to Islam's call for peace. Though he never officially renounced violence or Islam, he had founded a political group called The Organization of Afro-American Unity and was interested in working with civil rights leaders. King in particular commanded his respect as a person and as a leader, and he reached out to support him during King's campaign for voting rights in Selma, Alabama in 1965. Malcolm X was shot by members of the Nation of Islam in early 1965 before his relationship with King could progress.

King, for his part, had turned more radical and more willing to endorse the idea of "Black Pride" in his last few years. According to his aides, he became more radicalized as he worked on issues of poverty and joblessness in the North. These issues were harder to attack in some ways than the overt segregation of the South. According to King's wife, Coretta Scott King, King also had great personal respect for Malcolm X. King was assassinated in 1968 at age 39, the same age that Malcolm X had reached when he died.