Note: The images and descriptions in this article may be considered disturbing to some readers.

On Sept. 20, 1958, 29-year-old Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was in Blumstein’s Department Store in Harlem, signing copies of Stride Toward Freedom, his account of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott which he spearheaded.

Izola Curry, a well-dressed 42-year-old woman, approached the reverend and asked if it was really him. When he replied yes, she said, “I’ve been looking for you for five years,” and plunged a letter opener into his chest.

When police arrived on the scene, they found the civil rights leader sitting in a chair with the letter opener’s ivory handle still protruding just below his collar.

Fearful of the blade’s proximity to King’s heart, Officer Al Howard warned him, “Don’t sneeze, don’t even speak.”

While his assailant was taken into custody, King was carefully rushed to Harlem Hospital, where chief of thoracic and vascular surgery John W.V. Cordice, Jr. and trauma surgeon Emil Naclero were quickly summoned. Coming from a wedding, Naclero arrived still wearing a tuxedo, and prepared for surgery.