Fit to Live (Martin Luther King, Jr.) 1.099



On a dark Saturday afternoon in the mid 1960's, Martin Luther King Jr. was in New York City for a publicity stop.

He recounted that "while sitting there autographing books, a demented black woman came up and asked, 'Are you Martin Luther King?' Looking down writing, I said yes. The next minute I felt something beating on my chest. Before I knew it I had been stabbed by this demented woman. I was rushed to Harlem Hospital. X-rays revealed that the tip of the blade was on the edge of my aorta, the main artery. And once that's punctured, you drown in your own blood--that's the end of you. It came out in the New York Times the next morning, that if I had sneezed, I would have died."

Ironically, Martin Luther King related this incident in a sermon on the eve of his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee. Sensing the threat that night, he stated "I'm so happy that I didn't sneeze....[but] it doesn't matter now....Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will."1

King once said, "A man that won't die for something is not fit to live." Martin Luther King both lived and died by these courageous words.

Stand for God or stand for nothing! I think Dr. King had a premonition that something would happen that day, but he was prepaired to stand in the gap for his Lord and for the people who looked to him for leadership. It is fitting that the feds set aside Jan. 15th as Martin Luther King Jr. day to remember this man, his peaceful quest for equality and the dream.