Veteran US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson has been discharged from a Chicago hospital after receiving medical care for nearly two weeks, his family confirmed on Monday.
The 84-year-old Baptist minister, social activist, and one-time US presidential candidate is said to “remain in stable condition” following his release from Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
His son and family spokesperson, Yusef Jackson, issued a statement via the Rainbow PUSH Coalition – the Chicago-based political action organisation which the elder Mr Jackson founded.
Jackson’s hospital admission was announced by Rainbow PUSH on November 12, when he was described as being “under observation” for a degenerative neurological disorder called progressive supranuclear palsy, or PSP.
Jackson was diagnosed in 2013 with Parkinson’s disease, but his diagnosis was changed in April of this year to PSP, according to Monday’s statement.
No further details about Jackson’s condition or medical treatment were disclosed. But the family expressed thanks to friends and supporters for their prayers and visits.
“We bear witness to the fact that prayer works and would also like to thank the professional, caring and amazing medical and security staff at Northwestern Hospital,” Jackson’s son said. “We humbly ask for your continued prayers through this precious time.”
Jackson has been at the forefront of the U.S. civil rights movement since the 1960s, joining the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as a young protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and was present when King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968.
Some two decades later, as an outspoken critic of the Republican President Ronald Reagan, Jackson mounted a Democratic primary bid for the White House in 1984 but finished in third place. He ran for president once more in 1988 but failed again to clinch the party’s nomination, placing second.
