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.
Malcolm X was an African American leader in the civil rights movement, minister and supporter of Black nationalism. He urged his fellow Black Americans to protect themselves against white aggression “by any means necessary,” a stance that often put him at odds with the nonviolent teachings of Martin Luther King.