The author of a new book on the pioneers of the civil rights movement says, as different as the two were from each other, they were also each other’s alter egos in the struggle against racism.

Martin Luther King and Malcolm X rose from markedly different backgrounds to assume leading roles in the civil rights movement, and though each died violently while playing his respective part, neither man fully exited the stage. Both remain to this day celebrated figures in the fight for racial and economic justice.

Their much-publicized differences, most notably violence versus nonviolence, have rendered portraits of the two men as opposing figures, but Dr. Peniel Joseph, in his dual biography The Sword and Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., argues that these contrasts have been taken out of context. The two men eventually grew into alter egos of one another, he asserts, and each transformed the other in important ways as their visions converged. Dr. Joseph recently spoke with Governing Editor-at-Large Clay Jenkinson about these two iconic African American leaders.