NEW YORK: Accident in Harlem

In the shoe section of a crowded Harlem department store, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, 29, Negro leader of the peaceful, successful 1956 Montgomery, Ala. bus boycott, was autographing copies of his just-published book, Stride Toward Freedom; The Montgomery Story (Harper & Bros.; $2.95). Suddenly he was confronted by a Negro woman, who demanded: "Are you Mr. King?" King nodded: "Yes, I am." Then Georgia-born Izola Ware Curry, 42, who had lived in New York City on and off for half her life, suddenly flashed a steel letter opener and stabbed King in the upper left side of...

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