February 21, 2024 The Skanner Portland & Seattle Page 3
Black History Month
Black Historian Details MLK
Assassination
By Saundra Sorenson
Of The Skanner News
R
egi Taylor wants
you to know how
the civil rights
movement as we
know it came close to an
abrupt ending in 1958.
The Baltimore-based
writer and artist has
penned ‘Uptown One Sat-
urday Night,’ a longform
look at the night Mar-
tin Luther King Jr. was
stabbed by Izola Ware
Curry at a book-sign-
ing in Harlem. Curry, a
Black woman, was later
found not mentally com-
petent to stand trial and
would spend the rest of
her life institutionalized;
the comments she made
about her motivations
for the attack aligned
with her schizophrenia
diagnosis.
Taylor writes, “(King)
recognized his near mur-
der as a test of his ability
to faithfully abide by his
Christian ideals and so
he publicly professed his
sincere forgiveness of
Ms. Curry’s attempt on
his life before his release
from the hospital once
he became aware of her
mental condition.”
But in researching the
events surrounding the
attack, Taylor found
inconsistencies
about
Curry herself, as well as
concerns that her FBI
file was allegedly dis-
posed of in the 90s, many
years before the woman’s
death. He lays those ques-
tions next to a thorough
exploration of how the
best of Harlem respond-
ed to King in his time of
need, with the tip of a
sharpened letter opener
lodged perilously close
to his aorta.
It is not the first book
on the subject, but it is
comprehensive in detail-
ing the biographies and
intersecting lines of the
attacker, the responders
and everyone who had a
part in delivering King
to Harlem Hospital and
subsequently saving his
life. The details are at
the very least fascinating
trivia, but often serve to
further
contextualize
this night in American
history.
To name a few: Walter
Pettiford, a Black 21-year-
old advertising represen-
tative, restrained Curry
from further attacking
King. New York Police
Department officer Phil-
ip Romano prevented
a panicked bystander
from removing the blade
from King’s chest, while
his colleague Al Howard
immediately
assessed
the severity of the situ-
ation, phoned ahead to
Harlem Hospital, and
misdirected crowds so
he and Romano could se-
cure MLK and carry him
to safety; interestingly,
Howard would later be
on the team that appre-
hended “Son of Sam” se-
rial killer David Berkow-
itz. Prior to operating on
King that night, trauma
surgeon John Cordice Jr.
had been the Tuskegee
Airmen Fighter Pilot Bri-
gade unit physician, and
shortly after, was part of
the team to perform the
first open heart surgery
in France.
Taylor pushed to com-
plete Uptown One Sat-
urday Night in time for
Black History Month,
but he also turned in his
manuscript before the
death of his mother last
week, and finds himself
in a position to revisit
and document his own
family’s personal histo-
ry. In writing his moth-
er’s obituary, Taylor says
he is articulating what he
wants readers to come
away with: The closeness
and even immediacy of
events often dismissed as
historical and, in effect,
irrelevant.
The Skanner spoke with
Taylor by phone about
his work, which will be
published by Harlem
World Magazine’s press.
The Skanner: What
motivated you to write
this book?
Taylor: What I pub-
lished doesn’t exist any-
where. There’s no ac-
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
In ‘Uptown One
Saturday Night,’
Black Historian
Details Often-
Forgotten MLK
Assassination
Attempt
Black Liberation Flag Raised in Seattle
In honor of Black History month, Acts on Stage, Renaissance20 Youth Performing Artists, twin brothers Blaze and Channing, 10
help Mayor Bruce Harrell raise the Black Liberation flag over Seattle City Hall on Tuesday February 13th. The event followed a brief
celebration featuring a performance of the Black National Anthem by the twins Blaze ad Channing and brief speeches by Seattle City
Councilmembers Joy Hollingsworth and Rob Saka, Esq. and Seattle-King County NAACP President L. Darrell Powell.
counting of the story that
includes all the personal-
ities that were involved. I
wanted to make sure that
got chronicled and that
was immortalized once
and for all, so someone
could go and really see
what transpired and who
was involved.
The Skanner: What
surprised you as you
were researching this?
Taylor: The whole idea
Regi Taylor
that this woman, on her
own, decided to attempt
to assassinate Martin
Luther King. I mean,
quite frankly, she was
sort of a Manchurian
candidate. There were
some real contradictions
to the story; that’s why I
got into the fact that she
was ascertained to have
an IQ of 70, clinically
speaking. She dropped
out of school in the
eighth grade, but at the
same time, she’s credited
with writing letters to
the FBI complaining that
Martin Luther King was
a Communist. What did
she know about Commu-
nism? How did she un-
derstand the significance
of being a Communist in
1950s America?
This pistol that she
bought in Florida (but
did not use in the attack)
– this woman, at best,
was making maybe $18
to $20 a week. So to pay
almost $30 for a pistol,
that’s almost two weeks’
salary at the exclusion
of all her other living ex-
penses. There are some
anomalies there that just
don’t make sense.
Why did the FBI de-
stroy her FBI file 24
years before she died?
What was in it? She died
in 2015. She spent 57
years confined, and my
thinking was, at some
point maybe she started
to come around? May-
be she made some com-
ments to someone? It’s
just curious.
At the same time,
the FBI was definitely
surveilling MLK. So if
they’re aware that this
woman was a threat to
MLK, were they present
at the rally (the night be-
fore the book-signing)?
Did they observe this
confrontation this wom-
an had with MLK? Why
weren’t they anywhere
in the vicinity the next
day (at the book sign-
“
champion of civil rights
and education, and I was
able to find her first-per-
son, fly-on-the-wall ac-
count. She was actually
there with Martin Luther
King, steps away when he
was stabbed, she accom-
panied him to the hos-
pital in the ambulance,
she signed him into the
hospital for treatment.
She had a bird’s eye view
of the whole situation,
and I want people to real-
ize – particularly young
people – this wasn’t just
some guy who made a
speech and got a day
named in his honor.
I want people to real-
It just doesn’t make sense to
me; there’s something nefar-
ious there
ing)? This woman lives
two blocks from a ven-
ue where MLK was (lat-
er) attacked. Why were
they nowhere around,
just like they were no-
where around when he
was shot 10 years later in
Memphis? It just doesn’t
make sense to me; there’s
something
nefarious
there. I won’t posit a the-
ory, but I’m just asking
the question.
The Skanner: What do
you hope that readers
come away with after
reading your book?
Taylor:
Particularly
the younger generation,
people who only know
Martin Luther King as a
boulevard in their town
or a day they have off
from school, what I want
them to realize is the
journey that this man
faced, and the fact that he
faced down death. One of
the sections of the book
talks about Anna Hedge-
man. She was a prolific
ize that until Martin Lu-
ther King stood up and
pushed back, we were un-
der an apartheid system
pretty much like South
Africa of the 60s, 70s,
80s. And I want people
to understand the peril
this man faced down – he
faced down death in 1958,
and then he was killed in
1968, all in the name of
getting rid of apartheid
in America.
I wanted people to see
that it was a struggle, it
was contentious. I want-
ed people to see that it
was adversarial, not just
among racists – and I
mention in the book that
none of the civil rights
successes would have
happened without peo-
ple of goodwill, of every
race, and people of good-
will of every socioeco-
nomic status.
The Skanner: Your
book humanizes King,
by which I mean you
talk about not only the
dangers he faced, but the
discomfort – for exam-
ple, his having to stand
for nearly 100 miles of
a bus trip home after he
gave his first speech at
the age of 15, and instead
of feeling well earned
pride at his accomplish-
ment, fuming that he and
his teacher had been dis-
placed by White passen-
gers. In describing the
day-to-day, you depict
King as more accessible
and more recent than
he is depicted during
MLK Day messaging. In a
sense, you’re bringing at-
tention to the short time-
line between him and us.
Taylor: I talk about how
people with European
ancestry just came over
and assimilated – not so
easily; anybody with an
accent was an outsider,
and then they were able
to assimilate. But Black
people, who have been
here for over 400 years,
16 generations, are still
the outcasts.
Here’s what it breaks
down to: 25 years is a
generation, and slavery
went from 1619 to 1865,
roughly 250 years. That’s
10 generations of slavery.
From 1865, after the Civ-
il War, to 1965, when LBJ
signed the Civil Rights
(Act), that was a centu-
ry. So for 10 generations
there was slavery, for
four generations there
was apartheid, Jim Crow.
That’s 14 generations.
Only in the last 50-odd
years, since Martin Lu-
ther King’s assassina-
tion, have Black people
in America had any sem-
blance of citizenship,
despite being here all
this time. And that is still
tentative, because it was
never intended for us to
have it. If the establish-
See UPTOWN on page 11