Rev. Joseph Lowery, co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, has been hospitalized due to an undisclosed illness. He was reportedly admitted on Saturday.
Lowery, 88, is in the intensive care unit, but friends say he’s not in serious condition and will be released today.
Former Atlanta Mayor and close friend Andrew Young told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution he was scheduled to attend an African American achievement award ceremony Saturday, but didn’t make it.
“He was having shortness of breath, and he didn’t come to the Trumpet Awards last night,” Young said, adding that Lowery “has been in and out of the hospital before. I have not heard that it was serious. I think he was having some respiratory problems.”
David Stokes, another close friend, told the newspaper that Lowery was admitted to Emory University Hospital Midtown and was only placed in the intensive care unit as a precautionary measure.
Stokes said the last time he remembers Lowery being admitted to a hospital was when his blood pressure dropped a year ago after preaching a sermon. “It wasn’t serious that time either,” Stokes said.
The SCLC was originally headed by Martin Luther King Jr. Lowery was president from 1977 to 1997.
–gerald radford
