Read Online When Harlem Nearly Killed King by Hugh Pearson - Free Book Online Page B

arrival, store employees set up a desk behind the shoe department. A photographer from Harper and Brothers also waited to take photos of King with various VIPs and others waiting for him to sign copies of his book. Short, elderly, bespectacled Arthur Spingarn waited too, along with about fiftyother people, including an honor guard of female students from a local junior high school. Finally King, Rowe, and the rest of their entourage made their way inside. The decision was made that the first order of business was to take a photo of King and Spingarn together. As the photos were taken with King sitting at the desk, Spingarn standing above him, King smiling and turning to shake Spingarn’s hand, the fifty other people present patiently formed a line and waited their turns to have copies of their books signed. It was about 3:30 P.M . Suddenly Izola Curry waded through the throng, wearing her trademark earrings, sequined spectacles, and a nice dress covered by a blue raincoat. Under her coat she brandished a slender Japanese penknife with a gently curving blade six to eight inches long and a handle made of inlaid ivory. She also had a loaded Italian-made .32-caliber automatic pistol in her purse.
    “Is this Martin Luther King?” she asked as she walked straight up to King, hands concealed in her raincoat. “Yes it is,” replied King, certain this was just one more of the many fans he had been greeting for four days. Suddenly Curry brought her hand out of her raincoat in an arc. Instinctively, King yanked his left arm up to block the letter opener, cutting his left hand as Curry plunged the blade into his chest. Quickly a bystander knocked Curry’s hand away from the blade before she could pull it out and stab King again. “I’ve been after him for six years!” shouted Curry. “I’m glad I done it!” Curry started to run. A group of women who had been flanking King began chasing her, brandishing umbrellas and shouting, “Catch her! Don’t let her go!” Before they could reach her, the store’s floor manager blocked their path. Walter Pettiford, an advertising executive forthe
New York Amsterdam News
, the city’s principal Negro-owned newspaper, grabbed Curry’s left arm and swung her around so that he could grab her other arm. Then he proceeded to lead her toward the front of the store hoping to locate a store detective. As he held her, Curry kept repeating, “Dr. King has ruined my life! He is no good! The NAACP is no good, it’s communistic. I’ve been after him for six years. I finally was able to get him now!” Shortly afterward, I. B. Blumstein himself showed up with a security guard, who handcuffed her.
    Meanwhile King sat still, calm, and lucid with the letter opener protruding from his chest. Spingarn tried to comfort him, holding his hand while they awaited the arrival of an ambulance. As they did so, a woman named Mrs. James Watson wanted to remove the blade (the elderly Mrs. Watson as well as a woman representing Mayor Wagner’s office would later be placed under doctor’s care due to stress from having witnessed the incident). But another witness who apparently had far more knowledge of the best way to handle such wounds insisted that no one touch it. While waiting, the stabbed King assured everyone, “That’s all right! That’s all right. Everything is going to be all right!”
    At about 3:38 P.M. a phone at Harlem Hospital rang at the desk of Mrs. Constance Jennings. The person on the other end of the line told her that a man had been stabbed at Blumstein’s Department Store and that an ambulance was needed right away. About a minute later Ronald Adams, a Harlem Hospital ambulance driver, and Mrs. Russie Lee, a licensed practical nurse, sped down Seventh Avenue to Blumstein’s. Neither was yet aware thattheir patient was Martin Luther King. Upon arriving, Mrs. Lee, who had been a nurse for twelve years, looked at the letter opener protruding from the seated King’s chest. Calmly, just as