*Ø* Blogmanac September 20, 1958 | The stabbing of Dr King
On a Saturday afternoon in 1958, I sat in a Harlem department store, surrounded by hundreds of people. I was autographing copies of Stride Toward Freedom, my book about the Montgomery bus boycott. And while sitting there, a demented black woman came up. The only question I heard from her was, “Are you Martin Luther King?” I was looking down writing, and I said “Yes.” And the next minute, I felt something sharp plunge forcefully into my chest. Before I knew it, I had been stabbed with a letter opener by a woman who would later be judged insane, Mrs Izola Ware Curry.
King, Martin Luther, Jr, Autobiography, Ch. 12: Brush with Death; the stabbing occurred on September 20, 1958
Dear Dr King: I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High School. While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I am a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I'm simply writing you to say that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze.
Letter from an unnamed girl; King, Martin Luther, Jr, ibid
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You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry … Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong…with capitalism … There must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a Democratic Socialism.Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, who was stabbed on September 20, 1958; Source: Frogmore, SC, November 14, 1996, speech in front of his staff
On a Saturday afternoon in 1958, I sat in a Harlem department store, surrounded by hundreds of people. I was autographing copies of Stride Toward Freedom, my book about the Montgomery bus boycott. And while sitting there, a demented black woman came up. The only question I heard from her was, “Are you Martin Luther King?” I was looking down writing, and I said “Yes.” And the next minute, I felt something sharp plunge forcefully into my chest. Before I knew it, I had been stabbed with a letter opener by a woman who would later be judged insane, Mrs Izola Ware Curry.
King, Martin Luther, Jr, Autobiography, Ch. 12: Brush with Death; the stabbing occurred on September 20, 1958
Dear Dr King: I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High School. While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I am a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I'm simply writing you to say that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze.
Letter from an unnamed girl; King, Martin Luther, Jr, ibid
You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry … Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong…with capitalism … There must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a Democratic Socialism.Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, who was stabbed on September 20, 1958; Source: Frogmore, SC, November 14, 1996, speech in front of his staff
Pip Wilson posted item above at 2:24 PM | Permalink
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