The Stabbing Of Martin Luther King Jr.

It is well known by many that the great civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed on April 4th, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. What is less well known is that ten years earlier he had a close call and was stabbed and nearly killed in New York City. The event took place on September 20th, 1958 in Blumstein's Department Store in Harlem. Dr. King was attending a book signing for his first book titled "Strive Toward Freedom" and as he was signing books a middle aged black woman from Georgia named Izola Ware Curry came up to his table with a copy of his book for him to sign. As he was signing her book she asked him "Are you Martin Luther King?" As Dr. King was signing his name to the book he replied "Yes I Am." At that moment Curry produced a seven inch long letter opener and plunged it into his chest. Dr. King was rushed to a nearby hospital where surgery had to be performed in order to save his life. The doctors later told him that his aorta (the main artery to the heart) was nearly severed and that if he would have so much as sneezed he would have died. Izola Ware Curry was a vagrant who had a history of mental illness and Dr. King asked from his hospital bed that she not be arrested and jailed but that instead she be treated for her mental illness.