Liberals LOVE MLK, because MLK was a myth. Malcolm X was a leader. In his later years he was a better leader, unfortunately he was assasinated. But he was a great leader all about personal responsibility.
How so?
Lauralee, I was around to see Malcolm X assassinated by our own African-American versions of early (mid 60s) Islamic Fundamentalists. So Malcolm may have been an early martyr, in the Islamic sense, but that doesn't make him a great leader. He was a very interesting, bold and complex man, all the more so because he transformed himself from a pimp, criminal and numbers runner into a serious person.
I was around at the time, about as old as you are according to your profile, and it was a very compelling "either/or" choice offered between Malcolm and MLK. Lots of armchair revolutionary Liberal guiltomaniacs preferred Malcolm, for obvious reasons. But neither does that make him a great leader. BTW, I know that he shifted his positions , as you put it, "in his later years", but it would be better put, "in his later YEAR", because he really wasn't around as a personality for very long at all.
King was known in the fifties as a leader, and outlived Malcolm by more than two years.