This page is about Congressman and Ambassador Andrew Young. For other men with the same name, see Andrew Young (disambiguation).

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. In the 1950s, Young served as director of the youth division of the National Council of Churches and four decades later was elected to a term as president of the New York City-based ecumenical Council.

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.

Background

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.

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]

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.

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.

Diplomatic career

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.

Atlanta mayor

In 1981, Young was elected mayor of Atlanta, succeeding Maynard Jackson. He was re-elected in 1985.

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. Young played a significant role in the success of Atlanta's bid to host the Summer Games.

In 1996, Young wrote A Way Out of No Way: The Spiritual Memoirs of Andrew Young, published by Thomas Nelson.

Young is currently 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 for Public Policy, 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 became 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 some 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.^[4]

On January 22, 2008, 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 Charleston, South Carolina hospital workers' strike.

In 2008, in connection with comments he made defending controversial Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, Young was accused of "fronting for Africa's tyrants in corporate board rooms and congressional offices" by Martin Peretz, editor-in-chief of The New Republic. ^[5]