Ol school-Book on MLK stabbing in Harlem

The book "When Harlem Killed King" is a book about a day in 1958 when Dr. Martin Luther King went to Harlem and was stabbed by a crazy woman who thought that MLK was a "communist". Believe it or not (but it doesnt suprise me!) the crazy woman was black.....

The book goes into every detail of that day; how MLK choose the site of Harlem department store as oppossed to a neighborhood book store called the National Memorial African Bookstore, which sold books with names like The Damn White Man (couldnt find that on Amazon, I tried). The reasoning was that a book like this pointed to the beliefs of the book seller, and Martin Luther King was about loving his neighbor, not hatred. However, Lewis Michaeaux, the owner of the bookstore felt snubbed. He voiced his discontent at the book signing. This conflict points to MLK's conflicting with the black radicals who were active in his day. However, though Lewis and his group voiced their dissatisfaction with being ignored by MLK, they didnt go so far as to plan to kill the man, like the right wing crazy Izola Curry.

Nobody in this book for me was as interesting as Izola Curry. This was the woman who stabbed MLK in the chest with a blade and were it not for a team of talented black doctors, MLK would not have made history. The interesting thing abut Izola was that she hated groups like the NAACP. She claimed they were communists and she thought that communists were after her and trying to ruin her life. She also hated white people as well, so she wasnt one of those weirdos like those black Republicans today who love white people and condemn black people for being lazy and "irresponsible". She simply hated everybody.

The book goes into detail about Izola Curry:

Like plenty of others in those days, Curry believed the NAACP was controlled by Communists. But in her increasingly deranged state of mind, unlike paranoids like J Edgar Hoover, she sought no evidence of such a connection. She simply assumed as much. She assumed that Communists were running things in every civil rights organization. pg. 49

How she felt about MLK and the black church I've heard expressed from the lunatic black republican fringe:

She expressed extreme bitterness about two things:Communism and the Negro Church.She detested Negro preachers. She felt they were flimflam artists who pimped the community. She believed that boycotts and protests led by Negro ministers were a sham and that rather than follow them into protests, Negroes should appeal directly to Congress to change racial laws. Thus in Curry's mind, MLK was a young minister pimping the community for the benefits of Communists.pg 52

I found this character to be the grandma of the all crazy right wing lunatics like Lashawn Barber,Frances Rice, the Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson, and some dude who calls himself "The Notorious GOP".

There is so much more to this great book and this one day, and all the history and circumstances that surrounded that day. It only made MLK stronger and he continued on his mission to change history. This great book can be brought on Amazon and Book Ladder.

Ol school: Queens Reign Supreme

I am almost finished reading this excellent book "Queens Reign Supreme;Fat Cat, 50 Cent and the Rise of the Hip Hop Hustler" This is an awesome book which covers the whole history of the mid 80's drug kingpins and how their enterprising intertwined with the history of hip hop.

This is the untold story which surprised me; sometimes hip hop history books tend to sugar coat the realities of the cities from which hip hop came. For me this whole history was very revealing in that the early 80s hustlers were rubbing elbows with the likes of Kurtis Blow and Russell Simmons.

When you get this book, you get a very detailed history of how RUN DMC started and the birth of Def Jam records. All this leads up to the Irv Gotti and the beginning of Murder Inc. records. Throughout there is a very tangled web where the streets and the hip hop industry intertwine; and its laid out in such a way that puts it all together. You'll be thinking, "I remember reading about this event or hearing about when such and such happened" and this book shows what the ultimate end was. Once you read this book, you'll find out about major players on the NYC streets in the 80's (such as Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff'), why 50 Cent's song "Ghetto Quran" is so controversial, and what started the whole beef between Ja Rule and 50 Cent in the first place.

Without going into too much detail, Id have to say that if you pick this up on Amazon, it will prove to be a very welcome addition to any hip hop library.

Not only that, once you read this book, the recent drama surrounding Kenneth "Supreme" Mcgriff will make much more sense.