Andrew Jackson Young, Jr. (born March 12, 1932) is a Civil rights activist, was the former mayor of Atlanta and the United States’s ambassador to the United Nations in the Jimmy Carter administration.
Andrew Young was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. His father was a dentist and his mother a school teacher.
He had originally 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 Theological Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut in 1955.
Andrew Young then served as pastor of a church in Marion, Alabama. Young became interested in Gandhi’s concept of non violence. He encouraged African Americans to register to vote in Alabama, sometimes facing death threats while doing so. He became a friend and ally of Dr. Martin Luther King at this time.
In 1964 he was named executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, with whom he organized many peaceful protests. Young became one of Dr. King’s principle helpers, and was with King in Memphis, Tennessee when King was shot in 1968.
In 1972 he ran for US Congress and became Georgia’s first African American congressman since Reconstruction. He was re-elected in 1974 and 1976.
In 1976, President Jimmy Carter appointed Young the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. He held that post until 1979.
Andrew Young was elected mayor of Atlanta in 1981, and re-elected in 1985. While mayor, he was co-chair of the committee which brought the 1996 Summer Olympics to Atlanta.
Young continues to work for human rights. I watched Andrew Young give a talk at my aunt’s church earlier this year. He is living history!
Audrey's Black Belt 