Andrew Young

 

Andrew Young

Andrew Young (born on the 12th of March, 1932) is an American activist, former pastor and diplomat from Georgia. Andrew Young served as Mayor of Atlanta, the US ambassador to the UN and as a congressman from the 5th congressional district from Georgia. Young was also a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) during the 1960s and was an ardent supporter and ally of Dr. Martin Luther King. Young was born in New Orleans, Louisana to a mother who was a teacher and his father who was a dentist. Having grown up in turbulent times when the black-white segregation was at it’s peak,  and the way that even different classes of black people all behaved toward one another, Young was determined to make a difference from an early age. He was also deeply impressed by Gandhi’s non-violence resistance movement as a way to bring about peace an reform in the world and this would influence his career and future life.

Andrew Young moved to New York in 1957 after having accepted a post with the Youth Division of the National Council of Churches. He also made appearances on Look Up And Live, which was a Sunday morning television program on CBS. In 1960, Young became a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1961, Andrew would move to Atlanta where he would diligently work on the behalf of potential black voters. Young was also the perfect mediator between the black and white communities as they negotiated in the midst of a hostile atmosphere.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference named Andrew Young as their executive director in 1961. He also served as a negotiator during the Civil Rights Campaign in Birmingham in 1963 and Atlanta in 1969. Initially when he ran as a Democrat for Congress in 1970, he was unsuccessful but later in 1972, Andrew Young became the Democrat.  Young was popular amongst the hippie generation as well as many mainstream Americans of his time as he was opposed to the Vietnam War and helped establish the U.S Institute For Peace.

Andrew Young was appointed as the U.S Ambassador to the U.N by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. In 1979, although he had been involved in several international affairs which included the Rhodensian War, Young was forced to give up his ambassadorship. Despite this he staunchly maintained that he had nothing to regret.  In 1981 he ran for mayor of Atlanta on the persistence of the widow of Martin Luther King and later, he became a director for the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy as well as the chairman of the board for the Global Initiative for the Advancement of Nutritional Therapy.  Recently on 9th January 2015, Young delivered a keynote address at Vanderbilt University on Martin Luther King, Jr Commemoration Day. His first wife, Jean whom he met during his  first trip to New York in 1957, passed away in 1994. Young had four children with her and he later married Carolyn McClain in 1996.


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