Civil Rights icon the Rev. Joseph Lowery remained in stable condition Saturday and is continuing to improve from the pulmonary embolism that sent him to Emory University Hospital Midtown a week ago, according to a spokesman.
Hospital spokesman Lance Skelly said there is no “time table” for Lowery to be discharged from Emory Midtown and doctors are reviewing his condition “day to day” in deciding when he should be allowed to go home.
“He’s getting stronger every day,” Skelly told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Lowery, who stood with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement, was admitted to the hospital last Saturday with a blood clot in his lung. Friends insisted, however, that his condition was not serious.
Though 88 years old, Lowery is still quite active.
He offered the benediction at President Barack Obama’s inauguration last year and several months later he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian honor.
The day he was admitted to the hospital, Lowery was to have attended an award ceremony but didn't make it, said longtime friend and fellow civil rights leader Andy Young
"He was having shortness of breath, and he didn't come to the Trumpet Awards last night," said Young, a former Atlanta mayor.
Lowery co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference along with King, and he was president of the signature civil rights group for two decades beginning in the late 1970s.
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