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When Malcolm X broke from the Nation of Islam, the prospects for a constructive relationship between the two charismatic leaders seemed to improve. The two men personally met only once, in a hallway at the U.S. Capitol building on March 26, 1964. When King was later arrested during the Selma, Alabama desegregation campaign in early 1965, Malcolm traveled to the South to express his solidarity. He informed Coretta Scott King that he wanted to work much more closely with "the nonviolent movement." As Martin Luther King, Jr. recalled later, Malcolm "thought he could help me more by attacking me than praising me. He thought it would make it easier for me in the long run." Upon learning of Malcolm X's assassination, Martin immediately sent a sympathetic telegram to his widow, stating that "while we did not always see eye to eye on methods to solve the race problem, I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had a great ability to put his finger on the existence and root of the problem." King later regretted that their ideological differences had kept them apart, retarding the likelihood of the development of a stronger, more broadly based freedom movement. King biographer and historian Clayborne Carson also suggests that "had they lived, Malcolm and Martin might have advised their followers that the differences between the two were not as significant as was their common sense of dedication to the struggle for racial advancement." While still a member of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X confidently declared, "there are two types of Negroes in this country. There's the bourgeois type who blinds himself to the condition of his people, and who is satisfied with token solutions. He's in the minority...the handpicked Negro who benefits from token integration. But the masses of black people who really suffer the brunt of brutality and the conditions that exist in this country are represented by the leadership of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad." Less than two years later, on the eve of his assassination, Malcolm held a somewhat different perspective on the complicated relationship between race, class and identity. He now recognized, in his own words, that "anger can blind human vision." He now believed that a race war was not inevitable, and felt that "America is the first country ... that can actually have a bloodless revolution." Black working class, poor and middle class people should work in concert with each other, because "the Negro holds the balance of power." With total spiritual conviction, Malcolm could now proclaim: "I am not a racist in any form whatever. I don't believe in any form of racism. I don't believe in any form of discrimination or segregation. I believe in Islam."
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