MLK Jr: The First Attempt : Nearly 10 years before he was assassinated, as Dr. King signed copies of his book
Stride Toward Freedom,
Izola Ware Curry, a part-time maid from Georgia, stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener, nearly puncturing his aorta. Though she was eventually indicted for attempted murder, Ms. Curry was found
incompetent to stand trial and committed to Matteawan State Hospital for the criminally insane. Characteristically, Dr. King
forgave her and requested that she be rehabilitated as a productive member of society.
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posted by Alison
on Jan 18, 2010 -
7 comments
Invincible Cities "Hundreds of color photographs of Richmond, California, Camden, New Jersey, and Harlem, New York, intended by the artist to be part of a 'Visual Encyclopedia of the American Ghetto.' The photos depict the built environment of these cities as they change over time (1980s-2005). Website features a detailed introduction and databases of photos from each city with interactive maps." [
via]
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posted by mlis
on Mar 3, 2009 -
10 comments
"And I couldn’t get over the fact that there was no difference between [Harlem's famous]
Sylvia’s restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it’s run by blacks, primarily black patronship....It was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun...And there wasn’t any kind of craziness at all." 1968? Nope.
Bill O'Reilly in 2007.
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posted by ericb
on Sep 25, 2007 -
95 comments
Harlem's commercial and cultural backbone, 125th Street, has been gentrifying fast; many of its Black-owned businesses have been forced out by high rents and replaced by branches of white-owned national chain stores. The street's best-known cultural centers remain (notably the
Apollo Theater and the
Studio Museum in Harlem), but now, its oldest surviving Black-owned store,
The Record Shack, is facing eviction. Owner Shikulu Shange, along with other Harlem residents, will lead a
town meeting next week to discuss strategies for keeping Black economic development alive in Harlem and in NYC (as of the 2000 U.S. Census, NYC's five boroughs were home to more than 98,000 of about 129,000 Black-owned businesses in all of New York State).
posted by allterrainbrain
on Jul 7, 2007 -
52 comments
A long-lost treasure too toxic to touch: Construction at New York City's Harlem Community Justice Center recently revealed a room piled high with records documenting the building's former life as an early 20th century prison. They offer a peek into the street life of ca. 1900 NYC and scholars are already interested - there's only one problem: the room also contains decades worth of toxic pigeon droppings. (NY Times - registration required).
Photos (click on the "records rescue" link at the bottom) of the room are available at the great correctionhistory.org which also offers histories and photos of other out-of-the-way corners of NYC like the Hart Island Potter's Field.
posted by ryanshepard
on Nov 5, 2004 -
9 comments
Harlem 1900-1940, a site full of pictures and history.
The scope of this portfolio is Harlem from the years 1900-1940. Various elements of the history of the urban experience in Harlem's early days as the Cultural Capital of African Americans are represented here by graphic and photographic images from the Schomburg Center collection.
posted by Ufez Jones
on Sep 8, 2003 -
3 comments
