A00030 - Izola Ware Curry, Woman Who Stabbed Martin Luther King

Izola Curry (née Ware; June 14, 1916 – March 7, 2015) was a woman who attempted to assassinate civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. She stabbed King with a letter opener at a Harlem book signing on September 20, 1958, during the Harlem civil rights movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s. King was eventually assassinated April 4, 1968, in an unrelated incident. Curry was born near Adrian, Georgia. At age 20, she moved to New York City, where she found work as a housekeeper. Shortly after moving, she developed delusions about the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). 

Curry was one of eight children born to sharecroppers in 1916 near Adrian, Georgia, a city about 100 miles northwest of Savannah. She left school in the seventh grade and later married a man named James Curry when she was 21. The couple separated about six months after their 1937 nuptials, and Izola moved to New York City, the beginning of an itinerant existence that would see her bounce from Georgia, Florida, St. Louis, and New York while in search of steady work as a housekeeper, short-order cook, or factory worker. According to court records, as well as law enforcement and psychiatric reports, Curry began suffering from delusions, paranoia, and illogical thinking for several years before she sought to kill King. This erratic state appears to have contributed to her difficulties in securing and maintaining employment.

King went on a tour to promote Strive Toward Freedom after it was published. During a book signing at a department store in Harlem, a well-dressed woman approached and asked him if he was Martin Luther King, Jr. When King replied in the affirmative, she said, "I've been looking for you for five years," then stabbed him in the chest with a steel letter opener.

New York City police officers Al Howard and Phil Romano were in a radio car near the end of their tour at 3:30 pm when they received a report of a disturbance in Blumstein’s Department store. They arrived to see King sitting in a chair with an ivory handled letter opener protruding from his chest. Howard was heard telling King, "Don’t sneeze, don’t even speak." Howard and Romano took King still in the chair down to an ambulance that took King to Harlem Hospital, which was already notifying chief of thoracic and vascular surgery John W. V. Cordice, Jr., who was in his office in Brooklyn, and trauma surgeon Emil Naclerio, who had been attending a wedding and arrived still in a tuxedo. They made incisions and inserted a rib spreader, making King’s aorta visible. Chief of Surgery Aubre de Lambert Maynard then entered and attempted to pull out the letter opener, but cut his glove on the blade; a surgical clamp was finally used to pull out the blade.

While still in the hospital, King said in a September 30 press release in which he reaffirmed his belief in "the redemptive power of nonviolence"  and issued a hopeful statement about his attacker, "I felt no ill will toward Mrs. Izola Currey [sic] and know that thoughtful people will do all in their power to see that she gets the help she apparently needs if she is to become a free.  On October 17, after hearing King's testimony, a grand jury indicted Curry for attempted murder. 

Curry was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic by two psychiatrists who reported that she had an IQ of 70, “low average intelligence,” and was in a severe “state of insanity.” A Manhattan judge would later concur with the psychiatrists’ conclusion that Curry—who had been indicted for attempted murder—should be committed to the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.  

Curry spent nearly 14 years at Matteawan before being transferred in March 1972 to the Manhattan Psychiatric Center on Ward’s Island in upper Manhattan. She spent about a year there before officials placed her in the Rosedale Queens home of a woman certified through the state’s “Family Care” program to provide residential care for those diagnosed with mental illnesses. After a fall resulting in a leg injury, Curry was placed in the Jamaica, Queens, New York nursing home. where she resided until her death. Curry died on March 7, 2015 of natural causes.

A00029 - Willie Barrow, Civil Rights Activist and PUSH Executive Director

Willie T. Barrow (Willie Beatrice Taplin) (b. December 7, 1924, Burton, Texas - d. March 12, 2015, Chicago, Illinois) was a civil rights activist who devoted her life to championing the rights of African Americans and working to improve their circumstances, both on the front lines of public demonstrations and as a mentor to generations of young activists.  Barrow engaged in her first act of protest as a child, when she sought to change the rule that required African American children to walk to school while European American children rode on school buses.  When she was 16 years old, she moved to Portland, Oregon, where she worked as a shipyard welder and attended Pacific Bible College (since 1959 Warner Pacific College).  She also organized and led an African American Church of God congregation.  Barrow relocated (in 1945) to Chicago and attended Moody Bible Institute.  By the 1950s, she had become a civil rights filed organizer for such groups as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.  She participated in such campaigns as the March on Washington (1963) and the Selma March (1965).  In the mid-1960s, she helped found the Chicago chapter of Operation Breadbasket, which focused on increasing the hiring and promotion of African Americans.  Barrow worked with civil rights leader Jesse Jackson when he founded Operation PUSH (which also had the goal of economic empowerment in black communities), and she later served as the organization's executive director.  After the 1996 merger that created the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, she headed that group's governing board for 10 years.  In addition, Barrow was a vocal feminist and a supporter of gay rights.

A00028 - Moses Fleetwood Walker, Black Pioneer of Major League Baseball

Moses Fleetwood "Fleet" Walker (October 7, 1856 – May 11, 1924) was an American baseball player, inventor, and author. He is credited by some with being the first African American to play Major League Baseball.  Walker played one season as the catcher for the Toledo Blue Stockings, a club in the American Association. He then played in the minor leagues until 1889, when professional baseball erected a color barrier that stood for nearly 60 years. After leaving baseball, Walker became a businessman and advocate of Black nationalism.

Walker was born in Mount Pleasant, Ohio, the son of Dr. Moses W. Walker, the first African-American physician in Mount Pleasant, and his Caucasian wife. During his childhood, his family moved from Mount Pleasant, to Steubenville. Walker was educated in the black schools, until the schools in Steubenville were integrated. Both Moses and his brother Weldy attended Steubenville High School. He enrolled in Oberlin College in 1878 and played on the college's first varsity baseball team in the spring of 1881. Walker was a star catcher for Oberlin.

Walker was recruited by the University of Michigan and played varsity baseball for Michigan in 1882. While attending Michigan, Walker was able to play for the White Sewing Machine Club, based in Cleveland, Ohio. It was here that the young Walker experienced his first mistreatment based on his skin color. While the players dined at the St. Cloud Hotel in Kentucky, Walker was refused service because he was black. Things would get worse when the game was played, as the opposing team refused to take the field when Walker was installed at catcher. Walker was pulled, but his replacement was a mediocre player who could not handle the pitches thrown to him. When the crowd began to chant for Walker to play, the opposing team's owner begrudgingly allowed the Cleveland team to insert Walker.

During the season immediately prior to Walker's debut, Michigan's play was terrible, with catching being the sore part of the team. It was so terrible, that Michigan would recruit semi-pro players to play catcher for the bigger games. In 1882, Walker had an amazing season for Michigan. Michigan went 10–3, with Walker batting second in the lineup. He is credited as batting .308 for the season.

Walker signed with a minor league team, the Toledo Blue Stockings of the Northwestern League in 1883. At the time few catchers wore any equipment, including gloves. Walker had his first encounter with Cap Anson that year, when Toledo played an exhibition game against the Chicago White Stockings on August 10. Anson refused to play with Walker on the field. However, Anson did not know that on that day Walker was slated to have a rest day. Manager Charlie Morton played Walker, and told Anson the White Stockings would forfeit the gate receipts if they refused to play. Anson then agreed to play.

In 1884, Toledo joined the American Association, which was a Major League team at that time in competition with the National League. Walker made his Major League debut on May 1 against the Louisville Eclipse. In his debut, he went hitless and had four errors. In 42 games, Walker had a batting average of .263, which was above the league average. His brother, Weldy Walker, later joined him on the team, playing in six games. The Walker brothers are the first known African Americans to play baseball in the Major Leagues.

Walker suffered a season-ending injury in July, and Toledo folded at the end of the year. Walker returned to the minor leagues in 1885, and played in the Western League for Cleveland, which folded in June. He then played for Waterbury in the Eastern League through 1886.

In 1887 Walker moved to the International League's Newark Little Giants.  He caught for star pitcher George Stovey, forming the first known African-American battery. On July 14, the Chicago White Stockings played an exhibition game against the Little Giants. Contrary to some modern-day writers, Anson did not have a second encounter with Walker that day (Walker was apparently injured, having last played on July 11, and did not play again until July 26). But Stovey had been listed as the game's scheduled starting pitcher, but Cap Anson objected to a colored man playing. On the morning of that same, International League owners voted 6-to-4 to exclude African-American players from future contracts.

In the off-season, the International League modified its ban on black players, and Walker signed with the Syracuse, New York, franchise for 1888, the Syracuse Stars. In September 1888, Walker had his second incident with Anson. When Chicago was at Syracuse for an exhibition game, Anson refused to start the game when he saw Walker's name on the scorecard as catcher. Syracuse relented and someone else did the catching.

Walker remained in Syracuse until the team released him in August 1889. Shortly thereafter, the American Association and the National League both unofficially banned African-American players, making the adoption of Jim Crow in baseball complete. Baseball would remain segregated until 1946 when Jackie Robinson "broke the color barrier"in professional baseball playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers' minor league affiliate in Montreal.

In 1891, Walker was out of professional baseball, but he was not suffering by not playing the game. Walker purchased the Union Hotel in Steubenville. Seeing that moving pictures could be very popular, Walker bought a theater in nearby Cadiz. Walker applied for patents on several inventions for moving-picture equipment and even published a weekly newspaper. Also in 1891, Walker received patents for an exploding artillery shell.

Walker was attacked by a group of white men in Syracuse, New York, in April 1891. He stabbed and killed a man named Patrick Murray during the attack. The Sporting Life reported "Walker drew a knife and made a stroke at his assailant. The knife entered Murray's groin, inflicting a fatal wound. Murray's friends started after Walker with shouts of 'Kill him! Kill him!' He escaped but was captured by the police, and [was] locked up."

Walker was charged with second-degree murder and claimed self-defense. He was acquitted of all charges on June 3, 1891. Adding to the weight of the verdict, was that Walker was acquitted by an all-white jury.

Walker became a supporter of Black nationalism and came to believe that racial integration would fail in the United States. In 1908 he published a 47-page pamphlet titled Our Home Colony: A Treatise on the Past, Present, and Future of the Negro Race in America. In that pamphlet he recommended that African Americans emigrate to Africa: "the only practical and permanent solution of the present and future race troubles in the United States is entire separation by emigration of the Negro from America." He warned "The Negro race will be a menace and the source of discontent as long as it remains in large numbers in the United States. The time is growing very near when the whites of the United States must either settle this problem by deportation, or else be willing to accept a reign of terror such as the world has never seen in a civilized country."

Walker died on May 11, 1924, in Cleveland, Ohio, and is interred at Union Cemetery in Steubenville, Ohio.

Walker has traditionally been credited as the first African-American major league player. However, research in the early 21st century by the Society for American Baseball Research indicates William Edward White, who played one game for the Providence Grays in 1879, may have been the first.

A00027 - Earl Lloyd, First African American to Play in the NBA

Earl Lloyd, in full Earl Francis Lloyd   (b. April 3, 1928, Alexandria, Virginia — d. February 26, 2015, Crossville, Tennessee), was a basketball player who was the first African American to play in the National Basketball Association (NBA).

In the spring of 1950 Lloyd, who played collegiate basketball at West Virginia State College, was the second black player to be drafted by an NBA team. Chuck Cooper had been chosen by the Boston Celtics a few picks before Lloyd’s selection by the Washington Capitols. Nate ("Sweetwater") Clifton, however, was the first African American to sign an NBA contract, joining the New York Knicks that summer. The schedule resulted in Lloyd being the first black player to take the court in an NBA game, on October 31, 1950. He scored six points in that first game.

Lloyd enjoyed a long career in the NBA and continued his pioneering role as a coach. After a brief stint in the army, he returned to the NBA, where he was a key player for the Syracuse Nationals (1952–58), helping the team win the championship in 1955. He finished his playing career with the Detroit Pistons (1958–60). He later rejoined the Pistons as the first African American assistant coach (1968–70) in the league and the second African American head coach (1971–72). He also worked as a scout for the Pistons. In 2003 he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. 

A00026 - Clark Terry, Master of the Jazz Trumpet

Clark Terry (b. December 14, 1920, St. Louis, Missouri - d. February 21, 2015, Pine Bluff, Arkansas) was a jazz musician who played trumpet and flugelhorn with a rare wit and a sense of melody and harmony that bridged the swing and bop eras.  Terry, who was one of the most expressive of modern jazz trumpeters, was also noted for his humorous singing.  He played trumpet (1942-1945) in the All-Star Fantasy Swing Band at Great Lakes Naval Training Station.  After World War II, Terry was featured in St. Louis with the George Hudson band before he toured (1948-51) with Count Basie's popular band.  While Terry performed in Duke Ellington's band (1951-59), his breadth of inflections and sound colors widened, most notably when he played the role of Puck in Ellington's Shakespearean suite  Such Sweet Thunder.  As the first African American musician to play (1960-72) in the studio band on NBC-TV's The Tonight Show.  Terry became popular by inventing slurred, garbled nonsense vocals, and his 1964 recording "Mumbles" was especially well known.  In addition, he led a quintet with trombonist Bob Brookmeyer, played in Gerry Mulligan's big band, and toured with Thelonious Monk's band.  Though Terry mostly led small combos, he took (from 1978 to 1981) his own Big Bad Band on around-the-world United States State Departmennt tours.  He recorded prolifically throughout his career and appeared on 905 albums as a leader or a sideman. The National Endowment for the Arts designated him a jazz master in 1991, and he received a lifetime achievement Grammy Award in 2010. Terry's autobiography, Clark, was published in 2011.  Though he lost both legs owing to diabetes, he remained an effective teacher, and the 2014 documentary film Keep On Keepin' On explored Terry's mentoring of a student. 

A00025 - Harold Johnson, Light Heavyweight Boxing Champion

Harold Johnson (August 9, 1928 – February 19, 2015) was a professional boxer. He held the World Light Heavyweight Championship from 1962 to 1963.

Johnson was born in Manayunk, Philadelphia. He started boxing while serving in the United States Navy and turned professional in 1946. He won his first twenty-four fights before losing a ten-round decision to Archie Moore in 1949. Moore would be Johnson's biggest career rival. Johnson rebounded with four straight victories, including a ten-round decision win against future Hall of Fame inductee Jimmy Bivins. 

Johnson's father, Phil Johnson, was also a professional boxer. Phil and Harold Johnson became the first father/son combination to not only fight the same fighter, but lose to him as well. Both suffered third-round knockout defeats at the hands of future World Heavyweight Champion Jersey Joe Walcott in 1936 and 1950, respectively. Harold lost after suffering an injury to the intervertebral disc in the small of his back.

After five consecutive wins, Johnson resumed his rivalry with Archie Moore, fighting Moore three times in a row between September 1951 and January 1954. All three went the ten-round distance. Johnson lost the rematch, won the rubber match and lost the fourth bout.

In 1952, Johnson split two fights with Bob Satterfield,  losing the first by decision and winning the second by knockout, and won a decision over heavyweight contender Nino Valdez. The following year, he defeated former World Heavyweight Champion Ezzard Charles by a split decision. Johnson would finally get a title shot eight years into his career in his fifth and final fight against Archie Moore in 1954. Moore was making the third defense of the World Light Heavyweight Championship. In an exciting fight, Johnson knocked Moore down in the 10th round and was ahead on the scorecards after 13 rounds. But Moore rallied, knocking Johnson down and stopping him in the 14th round.

Johnson outpointed Julio Mederos over ten rounds in 1954. The following year, they had a rematch in Philadelphia. Johnson collapsed after the second round and was carried from the ring on a stretcher. Tests later revealed that Johnson had been drugged with a barbiturate. As a result, the Governor of Pennsylvania suspended boxing in the state for 114 days and instructed the Pennsylvania Athletic Commission to launch a probe. Johnson said he started feeling ill in his dressing room after eating an orange that had been given to him by a stranger who said he was a long-time admirer. A chemical analysis of a piece of the orange showed no trace of a drug or barbiturate. The probe never did uncover who drugged Johnson or how the drug was administered. However, the commission ruled that Johnson knew he was not in condition to fight and should have reported that fact to commission officials on duty that night. He was suspended for six months and his purse was forfeited.

When the National Boxing Association (NBA) withdrew recognition of Archie Moore as World Light Heavyweight Champion for failure to defend, Johnson defeated Jesse Bowdry in 1961 by a ninth-round technical knockout to capture the vacant NBA title. In his first title defense, Johnson stopped Von Clay in two rounds. After defeating second-ranked heavyweight contender Eddie Machen by a ten-round decision in a non-title bout, Johnson successfully defended his title for a second time with a split decision victory over 4th-ranked light heavyweight contender Eddie Cotton. 

Johnson gained universal recognition as World Light Heavyweight Champion when he defeated Doug Jones in 1962 by a decision in fifteen rounds. He successfully defended the undisputed title once, outpointing Gustav Scholz in Berlin, then lost it to Willie Pastrano by a fifteen-round split decision in 1963. Johnson would never fight for a title again and retired in 1971 with a record of 76-11 with 32 knockouts.

Johnson was inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Internationals Boxing Hall of Fame in 1993.

Johnson was named the 7th greatest light heavyweight of the 20th century by the Associated Press in 1999. Three years later, The Ring magazine ranked Johnson 7th on the list "The 20 Greatest Light Heavyweights of All-Time" and 80th on the list "The 80 Best Fighters of the Last 80 Years." Johnson died at the age of 86 on February 19, 2015.

A00024 - Dorothy Dandridge, Singer and Actress

Dorothy Dandridge, in full Dorothy Jean Dandridge (b. November 9, 1922, Cleveland, Ohio - d. September 8, 1965, West Hollywood, California), was a singer and film actress who was the first African American woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for best actress.

Dandridge's mother was an entertainer and comedic actress who, after settling in Los Angeles, had some success in radio and. later, television.  The young Dorothy and her sister Vivian began performing publicly as children and in the 1930s joined a third (unrelated) girl as the Dandridge Sisters, singing and dancing.  In the 1940s and early '50s Dorothy secured a few bit roles in films and developed a highly successful career as a solo nightclub singer, eventually appearing in such popular clubs as the Waldorf Astoria's Empire Room in New York City.

Dandridge then won the title role in Otto Preminger's all-black Carmen Jones (1954), earning an Oscar nomination for best actress.  (Dandridge did not sing in Carmen Jones, however, the singing was dubbed by mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne.)  Because she was an African American woman in a racially tense era, film offers did not come readily, though she did appear in Island in the Sun (1957), which dealt with miscegenation and costarred Harry Belafonte, as well as in The Decks Ran Red (1958), Tamango 1959), and Moment of Danger (1960).  One of her most important roles was Bess  in Preminger's handsomely produced Porgy and Bess (1959), starring opposite Sidney Poitier.  

In the 1960's, Dandridge's life and career were wracked by divorce, personal bankruptcy, and the absence of offers of work.  At age 42, she was found dead in her West Hollywood apartment, either the victim of an accidental drug overdose or a brain embolism.