WI MLK was assassinated successfully in 1958

Forgive me if this was brought up before. I searched, couldn't find it.

Saw this on Mental Floss today:

In 1958, civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. was signing copies of his book, Stride Toward Freedom, in the shoe section of a Harlem department store when a woman approached. After she confirmed the man was indeed King, she produced an eight-inch letter opener and plunged it into his chest. Surgery saved King’s life, though doctors feared that if he had so much as sneezed, he might have died—the weapon's edge had settled on his aorta. While in the hospital, he told a reporter that his attacker, Izola Curry, was in need of mental help. “I’m not angry at her,” he added. Curry was committed to mental and assisted living institutions before her death in 2015.

WI Curry was successful? What is the impact to the Civil Rights movement, race relations and politics? What else changes?
 

Greenville

Banned
The world wouldn't be that much different. Even if MLK isn't on television making large speeches, the Civil Rights movement continues on anyway. Kennedy will still meet with other leaders of the movement to draft some sort of civil rights legislation. It still takes Kennedy's assassination and Lyndon Johnson to be president before any actual legislation becomes law. Without that, it may have taken much longer to get it passed.

There won't be as many wonderful speeches and film clips of King speaking, but most major other things will generally still happen as the same. If he is killed in the 1950s I don't see riots after his death because of the lack of recognition at that time.
 
Might have done some damage. MLK understood the power of television before most people did. He insisted that his followers look and act respectable. As a result, the news footage showed white thugs attacking peaceful, clean-cut black people. That turned public opinion against the Bull Connors of the world.

A different leader might not have been as effective.
 

Greenville

Banned
People tend to exaggerate the role King had in the overall movement. He did get it recognized on television maybe enough for President Kennedy to become involved in the movement, but this probably would've happened even without him. if Kennedy survives assassination in 1963, it's quite possible civil rights legislation would not have passed until after 1968. Even with King alive, he would've been a forgotten figure without LBJ.
 
I'm thinking more of the forgotten figure, and possibly would have slowed Civil Rights.

Wondering if the murder would have stymied the Christian arm of the Civil Rights movement. Don't know.
 
Not completely. Thurgood Marshall Congressman Adam C Powell, and Roy Wilkins all have strong religious backgrounds.
There may be a change, with a switch from civil disobedience to a greater reliance on the courts. There will not be as strong as attempt to link civil rights and anti war as most of the other civil rights leaders, are friendly with Kennedy and Johnson to the end.
If the 1960 election goes the other way, Nixon during this period, has the endorsement of Jackie Robinson, Urban Leauge boss witney Young, and steelworkers union boss dwight mcdonald, himself a key player behind the scenes./
 
Top