Signed book: Stride Toward Freedom. First edition, second printing. NY: Harper & Brothers, 1958. Hardcover with dust jacket, 5.75 x 8.5, 230 pages. Signed on the first free end page in blue ballpoint, “Best Wishes, Martin Luther King, Jr., Oct. 2, 1958, Harlem Hospital.” Autographic condition: fine, with skipping to the name of the hospital. Book condition: VG/VG-.
King was at a book signing for Stride Toward Freedom in Harlem on September 20, 1958, when a mentally ill woman stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener in an assassination attempt that was almost fatal. He was rushed to the hospital and immediately went into emergency surgery to remove the blade, which was resting on his aorta such that even a sneeze could prove deadly—this formed the basis for the concluding theme of his famous ‘I've Been to the Mountaintop’ speech on April 3, 1968, the day before he was actually assassinated. King made a full recovery over several weeks at the hospital, where he signed this book for one of the attending nurses. An extraordinary association piece from a definitive moment in King’s life.
Please email [email protected] for a complete description of the book's condition. Pre-certified PSA/DNA.
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