Malcolm and Muhammad

“Turning my back on Malcolm,” says Muhammad Ali 40 years after the fact, “was one of the mistakes that I regret most in my life.” To his credit, Ali has come to grips with this tragic misstep, at least partially. His faithful, however, have not. To maintain both Ali and Malcolm X in the same unstable pantheon – an astonishing bit of myth juggling – they have had to gloss over an all but unforgivable act of treachery.

Malcolm X died on Feb. 21, 1965, just four days short of the first anniversary of Ali’s surprise conquest of Sonny Liston. Ali’s victory in 1964, in fact, greased the wheels then already in motion that would lead to Malcolm’s death. Had Ali been wiser, or more mature, he – and perhaps he alone – could have thrown a wrench into the whole ugly mechanism.”

TheStateOf…Ali and Malcolm. I’m not sure who this writer is, so I’m not endorsing the article at all. It seems a little too anti-Nation of Islam. Still, it’s interesting.