Another correspondent, Malcolm X, objecting to one of King’s attacks on racial separation, invited him to hear Black Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad at a Harlem rally “and then make a more intelligent appraisal of his teaching.” Malcolm X was gaining a reputation in the white media as an incendiary anti-white orator at the same time that his debating skills were bringing him lecture dates in prestigious theology schools, such as King’s own alma mater in Boston. Rather oddly, he addressed his letter to King at the NAACP office in New York, and King instructed his secretary to decline the
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