When Harlem Nearly Killed King

"Deftly recreates the political reformism, high-maintenance egos, and petulant jealousies that . . . remain prevalent in this nation's sociopolitical psyche."--"Boston Globe"

"When Harlem Nearly Killed King "spins the tale of a little-known episode in the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.--how, in 1958, King was stabbed by a deranged black woman in Harlem, and then saved by Harlem Hospital's most acclaimed African-American surgeon. In Pearson's hands, the life-threatening episode becomes, in a sense, a mortal danger to the soul of a nation struggling against wave after wave of crisis.

Hugh Pearson is a former editorial page writer at "The Wall Street Journal."