Andrew Young

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Andrew Young
United States Ambassador to the United Nations
In office 1977 – 1979
President	Jimmy Carter
Preceded by	William Scranton
Succeeded by	Donald McHenry
Born	March 12, 1932 (1932-03-12) (age 76) New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Carolyn M. Young
Profession	Pastor and Politician
Religion	United Church of Christ

Andrew Jackson Young, Jr. (born March 12, 1932) is an American civil rights activist, former U.S. congressman and mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, and was the United States' first African-American ambassador to the United Nations. The Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta was named after him. International Boulevard, near the Centennial Olympic Park, has been re-named Andrew Young International Boulevard, in honor of his efforts to secure the Olympic bid for Atlanta.

[edit] Background

[edit] Early life

Andrew Young's mother, Daisy Fuller Young, was a school teacher, and his father, Andrew Jackson Young, Sr., was a dentist. He hired a professional boxer to teach Andrew and his brother how to fight, so they could defend themselves. From that, Andrew learned that violence was very bad.

[edit] Education

After beginning his higher education at Dillard University, Young transferred to Howard University in Washington, D.C., in 1947, and received his Bachelor of Science and pre-medical degrees there in 1951. He originally had planned to follow his father's career of dentistry, but then felt a religious calling. He entered the ministry and received a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1955.

Young is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first inter-collegiate Greek-letter organization established for African Americans.

On Tuesday April 1, 2008, Young was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, honoris causa from Bridgewater College during the 11 a.m. convocation in the Carter Center for Worship and Music led by Bridgewater President Phillip C. Stone.^[1]

[edit] Civil rights

Young was appointed to serve as pastor of a church in Marion, Alabama. It was there in Marion that he met Jean Childs, who later became his wife. Also while in Marion, Young began to study the writings of Mohandas Gandhi. Young became interested in Gandhi's concept of non-violent resistance as a tactic for social change. He encouraged African-Americans to register to vote in Alabama, and sometimes faced death threats while doing so. He became a friend and ally of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., at this time. In 1957, Young moved to New York City to accept a job with the National Council of Churches. However, as the Civil Rights Movement gained momentum, Young decided that his place was back in the South. He moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and again worked on drives to register black voters. In 1960 he joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Young was jailed for his participation in civil rights demonstrations, both in Selma, Alabama, and in St. Augustine, Florida. Young played a key role in the events in Birmingham, Alabama, serving as a mediator between the white and black communities. In 1964 Young was named executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), becoming, in that capacity, one of Dr. King's principal lieutenants. He was with King in Memphis, Tennessee, when King was assassinated in 1968.

In 2005, to honor the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Ambassador Young, William Wachtel and Norman Ornstein founded Why Tuesday?, a nonpartisan group dedicated to increasing voter participation.

[edit] Career in Congress

In 1970 Andrew Young ran as a Democrat for Congress from Georgia, but was unsuccessful. After his defeat, Rev. Fred C. Bennette, Jr., introduced him to Murray M. Silver, Esq., Atlanta, Georgia, Attorney, who served as his campaign finance chairman, promoted concerts featuring top entertainers including Harry Belafonte and Bill Withers. He ran again in 1972 and won. He later was re-elected in 1974 and in 1976. During his four-plus years in Congress he was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, and he was involved in several debates regarding foreign relations including the decision to stop supporting the Portuguese attempts to hold on to their colonies in southern Africa.

[edit] Diplomatic career

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Ambassador Young, calling from New York City on an STU-I secure phone during the Israel-Egypt peace talks. (NSA museum)

In 1977 President Jimmy Carter appointed Young Ambassador to the U.N. His controversial statements made headlines almost from the start. He played a leading role in advancing a settlement in Zimbabwe with Robert Mugabe, despite the latter's avowed commitment to marxism. He was criticized for many of his statements, such as his suggestion that Cuban troops brought stability to Angola.

[edit] Atlanta mayor

In 1981, Young was elected mayor of Atlanta, succeeding Maynard Jackson. He was re-elected in 1985. As mayor, Young brought the city to national prominence by encouraging international investment which, in turn, improved the Atlanta economy after it was hit hard by recession. He was instrumental in bringing the 1988 Democratic National Convention to Atlanta.

[edit] Private citizen

Young ran unsuccessfully for Governor of Georgia in 1990, losing in the Democratic primary run-off to future Governor Zell Miller. However, while running for the Statehouse, he simultaneously was serving as a co-chairman of a committee which, at the time, was attempting to bring the 1996 Summer Olympics to Atlanta. Though his successor, Maynard Jackson, was able to enjoy the spotlight when the announcement came that Atlanta had won the right to host the Summer Games, Young almost certainly was more instrumental in the success of the Atlanta bid. Also in 1996 he wrote his auto-biography.

Today, Young is co-chairman of Good Works International, a consulting firm "offering international market access and political risk analysis in key emerging markets within Africa and the Caribbean." The company's Web site also notes that "GWI principals have backgrounds in human rights and public service. The concept of enhancing the greater good is intrinsic to our business endeavors." Nike is one of Good Works' most visible corporate clients. In the late 1990s, at the height of controversy over the company's labor practices, Young led a delegation to report on Nike operations in Vietnam. Anti-sweatshop activists derided the report as a whitewash and raised concerns that Nike was trading on Young's background as a civil-rights activist to improve Nike's corporate image. Young also has been a director of the Drum Major Institute, and also is the chairman of the board for the Global Initiative for the Advancement of Nutritional Therapy.^[2]

In 2004 Young briefly considered running for U.S. Senate after the incumbent, Zell Miller, announced his retirement, but decided not to re-enter public life.

In February, 2006 Young accepted a position as chairman of Working Families for Wal-Mart, a grass-roots public relations campaign sponsored by the corporate giant as a public response to widespread criticism that many of the company's American employees and their children are on public assistance, that the company uses child labor, that the company discriminates against female and African-American employees, and that workers manufacturing Wal-Mart products are subjected to abusive conditions and sub-poverty wages.

In an interview in 2006 a Los Angeles Sentinel correspondent asked Young whether he worried that Wal-Mart causes smaller, mom-and-pop stores to close. He replied with comments that were criticized as racist:

Following the wide-spread publication of these comments, Young announced on August 17, 2006, that he had ended his involvement with Working Families for Wal-Mart.^[3]

The Benton County Daily Record of August 26, 2006, reports:

In an interview in 2007, Young commented that Barack Obama was too young to be president, saying: "I want Barack Obama to be president," Young said, pausing for effect, "in 2016." Also adding about Bill Clinton, "Bill is every bit as black as Barack. He’s probably gone with more black women than Barack." Young quickly followed that comment with the disclaimer, "I’m clowning."^[5]

Also in 2007, Young appeared as a guest on the Comedy Central talk show parody The Colbert Report. Host Stephen Colbert invited Young to appear during the writer's strike, because, many years earlier, Young and Colbert's father had worked together, but on opposite sides, to mediate a hospital workers' strike in Charleston, South Carolina.

[edit] Documentary producer

"Rwanda Rising" premiered as the opening night selection at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles in 2007. Produced, narrated and financed by Young, this ambitious documentary told of a remarkable transformation taking place in the small African nation just over a dozen years after one of the worst genocides in history. Although the story had been all but overlooked by the mainstream media -- which Young believes has systemically failed to report positive stories from Africa -- he found the people of Rwanda no longer identified themselves by ethnic group, but, rather, had forgiven one another and joined forces as Rwandans to rebuild their country.

A number of prominent African American actors supported Young's project with voiceovers, including Danny Glover, Forrest Whitaker, Louis Gossett Jr., Levar Burton, Cicely Tyson, Phylicia Rashad, Jasmine Guy, Jimmy Jean-Louis, Lorraine Toussaint, and Elisabeth Omilami.

An edited version of "Rwanda Rising" served as the pilot episode of "Andrew Young Presents," a series of quarterly, hour long specials airing on nationally syndicated television. Each program expands on Young's optimism with regard to Africa and the world.

Young has said he is working on documentaries in Nigeria and Tanzania and has completed major videotaping.

[edit] References

• Andrew Young, An Easy Burden: The Civil Rights Movement and the Transformation of America New York: HarperCollins, 1996.
• Bartlett Jones, Flawed Triumphs: Andy Young at the United Nations Lanham: University Press of America, 1996.
• Andrew DeRoche, Andrew Young: Civil Rights Ambassador Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 2003.
• Oral History Interview by Dr. Mel Steely, May 1997 (Georgia's Political Heritage Project,University of West Georgia)
• Young's Presidential Medal of Freedom
• Transcript, Andrew J. Young, Jr., Oral History Interview I, 1970-06-18, by Thomas H. Baker, Internet Copy, LBJ Library. Accessed 2005-04-03.
• Oral history interview by Jack Bass and Walter DeVries, January 1974 (Southern Oral History Program, UNC-Chapel Hill)
• Biography (entry in the New Georgia Encyclopedia)
• Andrew Young Global Health Institute, a project of the Global Initiative for the Advancement of Nutritional Therapy
• Andrew Young School of Policy Studies
• Andrew Young biography and video interview excerpts by The National Visionary Leadership Project
• Good Works International, founder
• Andrew Young's federal campaign contribution report
• Andrew Young at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

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