Coretta Scott King hospitalized in Atlanta

[Brent]

Coretta Scott King hospitalized

Tuesday, August 16, 2005; Posted: 2:16 p.m. EDT (18:16 GMT)

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- Coretta Scott King was admitted to a hospital for an unspecified condition Tuesday and was resting comfortably, a hospital official said.

King, 78, the widow of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., went to an emergency room Tuesday morning, Piedmont Hospital spokeswoman Diana Lewis told WXIA-TV.

Lewis didn't elaborate on the reason for the hospitalization.

King has canceled recent public appearances, raising concerns about the health of the civil rights matriarch.

At a ceremony paying tribute to the King family at the Georgia State Capitol on June 30, her son Martin Luther King III said his mother was "doing well" and was only abiding by her doctor's orders to limit her activities. He refused to give additional details.

The Alabama-born Coretta Scott was studying voice at the New England Conservatory of Music when a friend introduced her to King, a young Baptist minister working toward a Ph.D. at Boston University. They married in 1953.

They had four children, and she was a supportive lieutenant to her husband during the most tumultuous days of the American civil rights movement. After his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968, she continued his work, founding the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change the following year.

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