He was a proud man, so he never so much as suggested that racism was an obstacle to his success—despite the significant barriers that existed for black doctors at the time. Neither did he talk about growing up in a state still in the grip of segregation, except to say that he really did have to sit at the back of the bus. When my father once asked him if we had any relatives born into slavery, my grandfather replied, simply, “We don’t talk about that.”

I am still unsure of exactly what kept my grandfather silent about the discrimination he faced in his own life—whether it was his reserve, or the etiquette with which he was raised, or perhaps some sort of shame. But when he spoke of King, and what he achieved for African Americans, he was reverential, animated. I remember him telling the story of King’s visit to the hospital a handful of times, usually around the big mahogany dining table in his Palisades, New York, home, where we visited every Christmas. In my mind, the story was an exception: It broached a topic otherwise not discussed, offered a glimmer of how my grandfather conceived of his own racial identity. There could be no shame in his background in relation to King, because King was such a hero himself.

I see now that it is often easier to talk about race in that way: to frame the collective struggle for equality by focusing on one great man.

King’s visit to the hospital became a source of pride for everyone involved. “For [King] to be brought to Harlem Hospital for a dangerous thing like that, where his life was at stake, it was a challenge,” Aubre Maynard, one of the black surgeons who operated on King, told the Times in 1996. “You see, it was a city hospital, and it was looked down upon.”

Al Cohen, the director of a soon-to-be-released documentary about King’s stabbing, recently explained the episode like this to me: “This was early on in Dr. King’s career, and at that particular time, he hadn’t yet risen to the prominence level that we know of him. And Harlem Hospital rallied to save his life, to give him the 10-year legacy that we know today.”

The episode not only proved that Harlem Hospital could handle a high-profile, high-pressure case; it eventually became woven into the very legacy of the institution. According to White, the staff still celebrates September 20 as the day Harlem saved King and the civil-rights movement. The story cemented Harlem Hospital’s place in black history.

Toward the end of our conversation, White—who has worked at the hospital for 25 years—reminded me that she had also known my grandfather. “Your grandfather is actually one of the people of whom we talk about when we talk about the legacy of Harlem Hospital, too,” she said, referring to a presentation she gives on the hospital’s history. “We actually mention Dr. Felton because of his work in eradicating tuberculosis in this community.”