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King's widow released from Atlanta hospital

Posted on: Thursday, 22 September 2005, 13:13 CDT

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Coretta Scott King, the widow of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., was released from an Atlanta hospital on Thursday after suffering a stroke in August that left her partly paralyzed, her doctor said.

The 78-year-old King, an icon for the role she played in the U.S. civil rights movement, will continue rehabilitation at home six days a week.

The stroke in mid-August paralyzed King's right side and affected her ability to speak.

"She is saying some sentences," Maggie Mermin, King's doctor, said at a media briefing outside Atlanta's Piedmont Hospital. "Yesterday she walked 80 feet twice."

Mermin, who appeared with King's two daughters, said the civil rights matriarch was taking blood thinners to reduce the possibility of another stroke but added there was no guarantee against a recurrence.

"The risk is not zero. But it's low," Mermin said.

King continued to fight for equality for black Americans after her husband was killed in Memphis, Tennessee, in April 1968.

She campaigned successfully for a federal holiday celebrating his birthday and created a memorial in the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, which includes archives containing her husband's speeches and his tomb.

Source: REUTERS

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