He Foresaw The End, Then Conquered Fear of It
Sept. 23, 1958
An intimate friend of Martin Luther King, who knew him in his school days well enough to call him “Mike,” Monday night filed out of his room 211 in Harlem Hospital and said, “I do not expect him Mike to live.
“Pneumonia had set in. It would be a miracle if he pulled through”
Police were in the hall, all through the hospital room and on the street. In Mr. King’s room were his wife, Mrs. Coretta King: his sister, Miss Christine King from Atlanta, and his father, Rev. Martin Luther King Sr. Dr. King is under sedation and is being fed through tubes.
The AFRO informant said, “Mike kept saying that he didn’t want his would be assassin prosecuted.”
Friday night, some 24 hours before Mrs. Curry attacked the Rev. Mr. King, she came to a platform from which he was to make a speech. She had in her hand a bunch of flowers.
The Rev. George Lawrence, pastor of the Baptist Ministers Meeting of New York, accepted the flowers from Mrs. Curry’s hands and took them to Dr. King.
The Rev. Gardner Taylor and Gov. Harriman were on the platform when the flowers were presented.
Mrs. King is occupying a suite of rooms in the Hotel Statler.
New York police have uncovered evidence that Mrs. Izola Ware Curry, the 42-year old domestic who stabbed Dr. Martin Luther King, harbored resentment against colored clergymen and race leaders for some years.
The AFRO learned at noon on Monday that police discovered several letters in Mrs. Curry’s room in a boarding house on 122nd St.
The letters were written to the governors of Southern States and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
One letter addressed to the governor of Florida said, “Please don’t let the preachers in the schools. They are driving me crazy with this Integration. Don’t let them in the schools.”
ON SUNDAY morning Mrs. Curry, who was arrested and booked on Saturday for felonious assault and Sulland Sullivan law violations, was arraigned in felony court, and later committed to Bellevue Hospital for observation by Judge Vincent Rao.
Mrs. Curry, who stands at 5 feet, 6 inches and weighs 151 pounds, recently arrived here from the South.
When searched at the police prescient, a 25 caliber Italian revolver fully loaded with six cartridges was found in her bosom, which she said was purchased last year in Daytona Beach Fla. Where she worked as a domestic.
While Dr. King was being operated on by the four-man team at the hospital Saturday night, an AFRO writer spent the vigil eating a snack with GOV. Harriman who stayed until he was assured that Dr. King would be all right.
Asked for a statement the governor said, “I will stay here until I am defiantly sure Dr. King is alright.”
Later in the evening the doctors assured the Gov. the minister would be alright after which he returned to his Manhattan residence which he a left, soon after he learned of the tragedy.
In the party at the hospital with the governor were Herbert Evans of the legal staff with the governor in Albany, senator James “Skid” Watson of Harlem, Mrs. Anne Hedgeman, assistant to mayor Robert Wagner of the city of New York; A. Philip Randolph, President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; Hulan Jack, president of the Borough of Manhattan, Robert Mangrum, recently appointed deputy hospitals commissioner; Councilman Earl Brown of Manhattan and Joseph Tepper, deputy commissioner of boxing on the staff of Gov Harriman.
MAYOR Wagner during the afternoon called the hospital to assure that all facilities were being made available to Dr. King, who is now in a room on the second floor of the hospital.
Visiting the hospital on Sunday morning were Dr. King’s wife and sister and the Rev. Abernathy, Dr. King’s lieutenant in the Montgomery Improvement Association.
Although more than 40 persons offered blood to Dr. King on Saturday night, only two pints actually were used. The hospital requests donors to still contribute blood in the name of Dr.
King for the use of other patients.
Transcribed by David Smith