5 interesting facts about Martin Luther King Jr.

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Monday, January 16, 2023

Survived an assassination attempt in 1958

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his 'I Have a Dream' speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the march on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in this Aug. 28, 1963, file photo. | REUTERS/Rowland Scherman/U.S. Information Agency/US National Archives

Although Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968, he was the subject of a failed assassination attempt 10 years earlier.

In 1958, at a book signing held at a department store, a 42-year-old black woman named Izola Ware Curry walked up to King and stabbed him with a seven-inch letter opener.

"King remained conscious and calm as a blood stain spread on his white cotton shirt. 'That's all right. Everything is going to be all right,' he counseled frantic supporters who debated whether to pull out the penknife," explained History.com.

"Luckily, no one did because it might have proved fatal as the steel tip of the blade rested a fraction of an inch away from King's aorta, the main artery carrying blood from the heart to the rest of his body."

Currey was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and spent the rest of her life in various psychiatric hospitals and facilities, eventually dying in 2015.