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Almost four decades after Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X offered sharply contrasting ideas regarding the future direc-tion of black politics, they still symbolize opposing positions that divide African Americans. Their sometimes rancorous debate, carried on through public statements rather than direct dialogue, set the tone for the disruptive, even deadly ideological and tactical conflicts within black communities in the years since their deaths. Contemporary black young people seeking social justice are still torn between racial integration and racial separation, between Martin's call for nonviolent resistance and Malcolm's insistence on "any means necessary."
But was the split between them inevitable? Were their ideas actually incompatible? Or were they in some ways complementary? Must African Americans choose between their ideological legacies? Would Martin and Malcolm have resolved some of their differences had they not been assassinated? Was their inability to achieve such a resolution a missed opportunity that has hobbled subsequent African American politics? Why, now, years after their deaths, are these questions relevant?
Martin and Malcolm have become the two most recognizable African American icons of the twentieth century, but popular understanding of the two men rarely extends beyond caricatures and sound bites. Martin has been honored with a national holiday that typically focuses on the "I have a dream" passage concluding his address at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Yet few Americans have listened to the rest of his speech at the march, and still fewer have heard his other remarkable speeches and sermons. Malcolm's image has appeared on a U.S. postage stamp, and his life has been chronicled in Alex Haley's best-selling Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) and portrayed by Denzel Washington in Spike Lee's 1992 epic motion picture (i). Yet Malcolm's political evolution during his final years remains little understood-a source of unwanted human complexity for those who prefer simplistic heroes or villains.
Scholars have subjected Martin's life to meticulous, critical examination based on a wealth of archival materials, but writings on Malcolm have been hampered by over reliance on his own autobiographical statements and a tendency in biographical works toward hagiography rather than serious analysis (2). Martin and Malcolm crafted public personae that obscured aspects of their past even while revealing some of their flaws.
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