Free When Harlem Nearly Killed King by Hugh Pearson Page A

through the winter months, due to being located in a community with a tremendous number of poor residents, the census increased by as many as two hundred to three hundred patients, necessitating that beds be placed in the hallways and along the corridors, causing a person to encounter the sick even as he stepped off the elevators.
    Yet as a place to gain experience treating the sickest of patients, you couldn’t beat large municipal hospitals. Bellevue was the largest in New York City, and by 1958 the largest hospital in the nation. So coveted were its wards for the variety of cases seen on them that the three most prestigious medical schools in the city had services there. Harlem Hospital was considered an excellent place in which to obtain experience too, though as yet it had no affiliation with a medical school. The hospital had been founded in 1887 in the days when the community was all Caucasian. It didn’t integrate its medical staff until 1925. And even as late as 1958 most of its departments were still run by Caucasians, though by then Negroes made up most of its interns and residents. The hospital also had a healthy share of foreign-born trainees. Among them were Charles’s Japanese wife, Hiroko, a resident in Obstetrics and Gynecology. On Saturday afternoon September 20th, Charles and Hiroko had just finished their shifts and were about to join two of their friends for lunch when Charles wascalled back into the hospital. He was told that as a first-year resident in Internal Medicine he was needed to assess an important patient who had just been brought into the emergency room with a stab wound.
    Felton made his way to the emergency room, only to see Martin Luther King, Jr., lying on a gurney with a letter opener protruding from the middle of his chest. The very surprised Felton introduced himself to King and reassured him. Then he listened to King’s heartbeat and breathing. Everything seemed stable. He took an EKG. Again, everything seemed as close to normal as could be under the circumstances. As Felton completed his examination of King, a team of emergency room nurses, surgeons, and surgical residents raced into action and began preparing King for emergency surgery. His mission accomplished, Felton was now free to spend the rest of his day with his wife and their two friends. As he joined them, the emergency room began filling up with reporters, onlookers, and important people, such as Arthur Spingarn, A. Phillip Randolph, and aides to Mayor Wagner. It was as if the president of the United States had been brought in.
    Governor Harriman was participating in a parade down Fifth Avenue when he was notified that King had been stabbed. He returned to his Upper East Side home and consulted with his aides, becoming extremely worried. This being an election year, any kind of negative publicity with regard to a celebrity could affect the outcome of the vote in November. Suppose King died on his watch? thought Harriman. People would spend time second-guessing,maybe to the point of wondering why the governor hadn’t insisted on better security to accompany King on his visit. And why had they taken such an important figure to Harlem Hospital anyway? Why not Mount Sinai or Columbia-Presbyterian?
    When he was notified of the stabbing, Rockefeller wasn’t in the city at all. Right after the Friday political rally in Harlem he made his way to nearby White Plains, just north of the city, for an appearance at a benefit for the George Washington Carver Community Center to shake hands with guests. Then, during the actual day of the stabbing, he made his way to Albany, the state capital, over one hundred miles away, for another campaign appearance. Upon hearing of the crisis, he issued a statement expressing shock and prayers for King. But he had no intention of making it back to New York City and over to Harlem Hospital.
    Harriman and his entourage saw their opportunity to make hay with Negro voters (though by no means would