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Woman who almost killed Martin Luther King Jr. dies 56 years

19 March 2015

According to Dailmail, the woman who stabbed Dr Martin Luther King Jr during a 1958 book signing has died, aged 98. Izola Ware Curry, who stabbed the civil rights leader in the chest with a seven-inch letter opener, died at a Queens, New York, nursing home where she moved several years ago.

Curry was originally sent to Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and spent many years living anonymously despite the 1958 attack at Blumstein's Department Store in Harlem.  She was also carrying a loaded pistol in her bra at the time.

Dr King survived the incident at Blumstein's Department Store, where he was signing his first book Stride Toward Freedom, by fractions of an inch.

The knife came close to puncturing his aorta and he could have died at the store if bystanders had taken the weapon out of his chest before his three-hour surgery.  He referred to the incident in his I've Been To The Mountaintop speech, the last remarks he gave before his assassination on April 4, 1968 by James Earl Ray. 

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