Volume IV: Symbol of the Movement,
January 1957- December 1958

Although King never responded directly to letters from Malcolm X, the Nation of Islam leader continued his efforts to contact him.

Mr. Malcolm X
25-46 99th Street
E. Elmhurst 69, New York

Dear Mr. X:

This is to acknowledge receipt of your letters to Rev. M. L. King, Jr.

Rev. King has read your letters and articles with great interest. He wants to thank you for your kindness in sending them.

Yours very truly,
(Mrs.) Maude L. Ballou
Secretary to Rev. King

TLc. MLKP-MBU: Box 67.
 

1. See for example, Malcolm X to King, 21 July 1960. Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik el-Shabazz) (1925-1965), born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, joined the Nation of Islam while serving a prison term in Massachusetts. Soon after his release on parole in 1952, he became a minister for the religious group, led by Elijah Muhammad. After serving as minister of temples in Boston and Philadelphia, Malcolm X became minister of New York's Temple 7 in 1954 and quickly became recognized as the leading spokesman for the Nation of Islam. Culminating several years of growing tension within the organization, Muhammad suspended X in 1963 for making controversial comments following President Kennedy's assassination. Soon thereafter, Malcolm X's pilgrimage to Islam's holy city of Mecca led him to alter his separatist views and advocate cooperation among international organizations, African-American groups, and progressive whites, who could advance the black freedom struggle. In 1964 he founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity to work for African-American human rights. Despite his continuing efforts to contact King, the two did not meet until a brief encounter in March 1964 at the Capitol. On 21 February 1965, less than three weeks after meeting Coretta Scott King in Selma, Alabama, Malcolm X was assassinated in Harlem.

2. The letters that Ballou acknowledges have not been located. Two articles in King's files may have been among those sent by Malcolm X: Malcolm X, "We Are Rising From the Dead Since We Heard Messenger Muhammad Speak," Pittsburgh Courier, 15 December 1956; Herbert H. Hyman and Paul B. Sheatsley, "Attitudes Toward Desegregation," Scientific American 195, no. 6 (December 1956).

3. Maude L. Williams Ballou (1926- ), born in Fairhope, Alabama and raised in Mobile, received a B. S. (1947) from Southern University. After moving to Montgomery in 1952, Ballou participated in meetings of the Women's Political Council, an organization which demanded the city provide better bus service for African Americans. Ballou began working for the MIA as King's personal secretary shortly after the start of the bus boycott. When King moved to Atlanta in February 1960, Ballou relocated to help establish his office in that city.

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