Biography of
Andrew Jackson Young Jr.

Who was Andrew Young Jr.? Most people immediately associate him with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson and the Civil Rights Movement. I chose to write about Andrew Young because of his strong feelings about the rights of black Americans. He felt that everyone, black or white, should have equal rights. Andrew fought along the side of Martin Luther King, Jr. and continued the work after King's death. The Civil Rights Movement required many dedicated and determined souls. Andrew Young, like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a man of peace who believed in using love vice hate to settle disagreements. He accomplished many wonderful things to help Martin Luther King's Dream live on.
Andrew Jackson Young Jr. was born March 12, 1932, in New Orleans, Louisiana, during the depths of the Great Depression and Jim Crow segregation. His grandfather had been a successful businessman who had operated a drugstore, a pool hall, and a saloon. His father, Andrew Young Sr. was a dentist and his mother Daisy Fuller Young was a school teacher. The Young’s were among the elite of the city’s black population, which was largely poor and uneducated. Dr. Young Sr. could have afforded to live in a well-to-do white neighborhood, but no one would sell to him.(African American pg 104) .His parents were always very supportive of Andrew and his brother Walter. His parents always taught them the importance of religion and education and to treat others with respect. When Andrew was very young, he began to realize that whites and blacks were treated differently. Andrew was brought up to believe that "from those to whom much has been given, much will be required." (Andrew Young b. 1932). Andrew, his family, and his black friends were not allowed to go to the same schools, restaurants, or use the same public bathrooms as white people.
As a child, Andrew was very small in stature. His father often worried that Andrew couldn’t protect himself. His father hired a boxer to teach Andrew how to fight. Andrew decided at that moment there are better ways to settle a fight. He decided he would talk it out instead of fight it out. Andrew's motto was, "Don't get mad, Get Smart!”. Andrew believed that the most powerful weapon you have is your mind (Young, 1996, pg. 24). He indeed lived up to these words. In 1947, at the age of fifteen, Andrew graduated from Gilbert Academy, a private school in New Orleans. He attended a year at Dillard University, a black university. In 1947, Andy transferred to Howard University, in Washington D.C, where his father had studied. His father wanted him to be a doctor or a dentist. Andrew graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree at age nineteen. After graduation from Howard in May 1951 Andrew was still very uncertain what he wanted to do. He felt that he had another purpose in life. The following summer he volunteered to work for six months with the United Christian Youth Movement. Each summer the students were assigned a community to preach and work at. The summer of 1952, Andrew was assigned to Marion, Alabama. This is where he met his future wife, Jean Childs. They had many of the same beliefs and the same goals for life. They were married in 1954 and have four children, Andrea, Lisa, Paula, and Andrew, III. While working for the United Christian Youth Movement he decided this was the best and he loved working with teens of all races. By the end of his volunteer assignment Andrew had made a very important decision, he wanted to be a minister.
When Young graduated from Howard University he earned a divinity degree from Hartford Theological Seminary in Connecticut. Andrew enjoyed learning about the world’s great religious leaders, especially Gandhi. Gandhi was a man who had shown the people of India how to settle their disagreements peacefully. This was the first time Andrew learned of leaders settling problems peacefully. Andrew really liked this concept. He accepted the pastorate of Bethany Congregational Church in Thomasville, Georgia, in 1955. Andrew began preaching religion throughout Georgia. He would visit poor rural communities that were in great need of a minister. After preaching religion Andrew believed he needed to do more. He decided to talk about voting. In the South, the blacks were not allowed to vote, but Andrew was determined to change this. He taught and encouraged the black people to vote. While there he immersed himself in civil rights and in organizing voter registration drives Young joined the staff of the National Council of Churches in 1957, the year U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect African American school children in a school desegregation case.
Young left his position as pastor in 1961 to work with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the church-centered, Atlanta-based civil rights organization led by Martin Luther king Jr.
Young assisted in the organization of "citizenship schools" for the SCLC, workshops that taught nonviolent organizing strategies to local people whom members of the organization had identified as potential leaders. The schools served rural, typically uneducated blacks who sometimes chafed under Young's leadership. Differences in education and economic background between Young and other black leaders of that time may have caused some to consider him elitist. Nonetheless, the citizenship schools educated a generation of civic leaders and registered thousands of voters throughout the South, and were largely responsible for both the civil rights movement’s democratic ethos and its eventual success.
Young became a trusted aide to Martin Luther King Jr., eventually rising to the executive directorship of the SCLC. He was instrumental in organizing voter registration and desegregation campaigns in Albany; Birmingham and Selma, Alabama; and Washington, D.C., among other places. He was with King when the civil rights leader was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.
After King's assassination many of his closest followers struggled to find a voice. Young did not. He won Georgia's Fifth District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1972 and became the first African American since reconstruction to be elected to Congress from Georgia. Young's election was momentous: he and Barbara Jordan, a Democrat who was also elected to the House (from Texas) in 1972, became two of the first black southerners in Congress in the twentieth century. The voter registration campaigns Young had helped organize throughout the South in the 1950s and 1960s bore fruit and would eventually result in the election of thousands of African American candidates to higher office in the coming decades. Young was twice reelected to the House of Representatives.
While in Congress, Young championed the causes of poor and working-class Americans and opposed efforts to increase military budgets. He supported the 1976 presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter, and in 1977 Carter named Young ambassador to the United Nations. Young helped Carter transform the basis of American foreign policy, making human rights a central focus and arguing that economic development in the Third World, particularly in Africa, was in the best interest of the United States. Young was among the first to call for sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa and he fought for U.S. recognition of Communist Vietnam. He was forced to resign the position in 1979 for having met with a representative of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). At that time the PLO was considered a terrorist organization, and U.S. officials were officially forbidden to meet with its members.
Young returned to Atlanta and in 1981 was elected the city's mayor. His election signaled the institutionalization of the revolution in black political power he had helped to create in Georgia. 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. For the first time an African American mayor (Maynard Jackson) handed over the keys of a major city to another African American. Young won reelection in 1985 but were defeated in a 1990 primary bid to become the Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia. In 1993 Morehouse College in Atlanta established the Center for International Studies, which was renamed the Andrew Young Center for International Studies in March 1998. In 1994 Young’s first wife, Jean died of cancer. He married his second wife, Carolyn, in 1996.
In summary, Andrew Young has accomplished many things in his life time. He was Ambassador to the United Nations, mayor of Atlanta Georgia for two consecutive terms and under his administration over a million jobs was created. He also was executive director of the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) where he worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and he was the first African American to be elected to congress from Georgia. Young has published two books, A Way Out of No Way and An Easy Burden: The Civil Right Movement and the Transformation of America. He is currently a professor at Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. He is still active in Georgia’s civic affairs. He has continued to foster economic development world as a business consultant and as a chairman of Southern Africa enterprise development Fund which President Bill Clinton appointed him. What I like most about Andrew Young is he fought for human rights and not only for black people but for all people. He is a man of peace that believes everyone black or white should have equal rights. He has paved the way for many other black leaders. I think Andrew Young probably should be seen in the same light as Martin Luther King Jr. because their mission were one in the same peace and equality.

Bibliography

1.)Haskins, Jim & Kathleen Benson. African American Religious Leaders. San

Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2008.

2.)”NCC President 2000-2001.” National Council of Churches USA. 18 Jan. 2002. 28

Apr.2008www.cau.edu/p_releases/BioAmbassadorAndrewYoung.htm

3.)Russell, Herman J. “Andrew Young Biography.”27 Aug. 2005. HistoryMaker. 26 Apr.

2008.www.thehistorymakers.com/biography/biography.asp?bioindex=1210

4.)Young, Andrew. An Easy Burden. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

5.)Young, Andrew. A Way Out of No Way. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1994.

6.) Young, Andrew (b.1932) “The New Georgia Encyclopedia” 26 Apr, 2008 http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-1395 Andrew Young (b. 1932) www.cau.edu/p_releases/BioAmbassadorAndrewYoung.htm .

Biography of
Andrew Jackson Young Jr.

Who was Andrew Young Jr.? Most people immediately associate him with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson and the Civil Rights Movement. I chose to write about Andrew Young because of his strong feelings about the rights of black Americans. He felt that everyone, black or white, should have equal rights. Andrew fought along the side of Martin Luther King, Jr. and continued the work after King's death. The Civil Rights Movement required many dedicated and determined souls. Andrew Young, like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a man of peace who believed in using love vice hate to settle disagreements. He accomplished many wonderful things to help Martin Luther King's Dream live on.
Andrew Jackson Young Jr. was born March 12, 1932, in New Orleans, Louisiana, during the depths of the Great Depression and Jim Crow segregation. His grandfather had been a successful businessman who had operated a drugstore, a pool hall, and a saloon. His father, Andrew Young Sr. was a dentist and his mother Daisy Fuller Young was a school teacher. The Young’s were among the elite of the city’s black population, which was largely poor and uneducated. Dr. Young Sr. could have afforded to live in a well-to-do white neighborhood, but no one would sell to him.(African American pg 104) .His parents were always very supportive of Andrew and his brother Walter. His parents always taught them the importance of religion and education and to treat others with respect. When Andrew was very young, he began to realize that whites and blacks were treated differently. Andrew was brought up to believe that "from those to whom much has been given, much will be required." (Andrew Young b. 1932). Andrew, his family, and his black friends were not allowed to go to the same schools, restaurants, or use the same public bathrooms as white people.
As a child, Andrew was very small in stature. His father often worried that Andrew couldn’t protect himself. His father hired a boxer to teach Andrew how to fight. Andrew decided at that moment there are better ways to settle a fight. He decided he would talk it out instead of fight it out. Andrew's motto was, "Don't get mad, Get Smart!”. Andrew believed that the most powerful weapon you have is your mind (Young, 1996, pg. 24). He indeed lived up to these words. In 1947, at the age of fifteen, Andrew graduated from Gilbert Academy, a private school in New Orleans. He attended a year at Dillard University, a black university. In 1947, Andy transferred to Howard University, in Washington D.C, where his father had studied. His father wanted him to be a doctor or a dentist. Andrew graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree at age nineteen. After graduation from Howard in May 1951 Andrew was still very uncertain what he wanted to do. He felt that he had another purpose in life. The following summer he volunteered to work for six months with the United Christian Youth Movement. Each summer the students were assigned a community to preach and work at. The summer of 1952, Andrew was assigned to Marion, Alabama. This is where he met his future wife, Jean Childs. They had many of the same beliefs and the same goals for life. They were married in 1954 and have four children, Andrea, Lisa, Paula, and Andrew, III. While working for the United Christian Youth Movement he decided this was the best and he loved working with teens of all races. By the end of his volunteer assignment Andrew had made a very important decision, he wanted to be a minister.
When Young graduated from Howard University he earned a divinity degree from Hartford Theological Seminary in Connecticut. Andrew enjoyed learning about the world’s great religious leaders, especially Gandhi. Gandhi was a man who had shown the people of India how to settle their disagreements peacefully. This was the first time Andrew learned of leaders settling problems peacefully. Andrew really liked this concept. He accepted the pastorate of Bethany Congregational Church in Thomasville, Georgia, in 1955. Andrew began preaching religion throughout Georgia. He would visit poor rural communities that were in great need of a minister. After preaching religion Andrew believed he needed to do more. He decided to talk about voting. In the South, the blacks were not allowed to vote, but Andrew was determined to change this. He taught and encouraged the black people to vote. While there he immersed himself in civil rights and in organizing voter registration drives Young joined the staff of the National Council of Churches in 1957, the year U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect African American school children in a school desegregation case.
Young left his position as pastor in 1961 to work with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the church-centered, Atlanta-based civil rights organization led by Martin Luther king Jr.
Young assisted in the organization of "citizenship schools" for the SCLC, workshops that taught nonviolent organizing strategies to local people whom members of the organization had identified as potential leaders. The schools served rural, typically uneducated blacks who sometimes chafed under Young's leadership. Differences in education and economic background between Young and other black leaders of that time may have caused some to consider him elitist. Nonetheless, the citizenship schools educated a generation of civic leaders and registered thousands of voters throughout the South, and were largely responsible for both the civil rights movement’s democratic ethos and its eventual success.
Young became a trusted aide to Martin Luther King Jr., eventually rising to the executive directorship of the SCLC. He was instrumental in organizing voter registration and desegregation campaigns in Albany; Birmingham and Selma, Alabama; and Washington, D.C., among other places. He was with King when the civil rights leader was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.
After King's assassination many of his closest followers struggled to find a voice. Young did not. He won Georgia's Fifth District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1972 and became the first African American since reconstruction to be elected to Congress from Georgia. Young's election was momentous: he and Barbara Jordan, a Democrat who was also elected to the House (from Texas) in 1972, became two of the first black southerners in Congress in the twentieth century. The voter registration campaigns Young had helped organize throughout the South in the 1950s and 1960s bore fruit and would eventually result in the election of thousands of African American candidates to higher office in the coming decades. Young was twice reelected to the House of Representatives.
While in Congress, Young championed the causes of poor and working-class Americans and opposed efforts to increase military budgets. He supported the 1976 presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter, and in 1977 Carter named Young ambassador to the United Nations. Young helped Carter transform the basis of American foreign policy, making human rights a central focus and arguing that economic development in the Third World, particularly in Africa, was in the best interest of the United States. Young was among the first to call for sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa and he fought for U.S. recognition of Communist Vietnam. He was forced to resign the position in 1979 for having met with a representative of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). At that time the PLO was considered a terrorist organization, and U.S. officials were officially forbidden to meet with its members.
Young returned to Atlanta and in 1981 was elected the city's mayor. His election signaled the institutionalization of the revolution in black political power he had helped to create in Georgia. 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. For the first time an African American mayor (Maynard Jackson) handed over the keys of a major city to another African American. Young won reelection in 1985 but were defeated in a 1990 primary bid to become the Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia. In 1993 Morehouse College in Atlanta established the Center for International Studies, which was renamed the Andrew Young Center for International Studies in March 1998. In 1994 Young’s first wife, Jean died of cancer. He married his second wife, Carolyn, in 1996.
In summary, Andrew Young has accomplished many things in his life time. He was Ambassador to the United Nations, mayor of Atlanta Georgia for two consecutive terms and under his administration over a million jobs was created. He also was executive director of the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) where he worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and he was the first African American to be elected to congress from Georgia. Young has published two books, A Way Out of No Way and An Easy Burden: The Civil Right Movement and the Transformation of America. He is currently a professor at Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. He is still active in Georgia’s civic affairs. He has continued to foster economic development world as a business consultant and as a chairman of Southern Africa enterprise development Fund which President Bill Clinton appointed him. What I like most about Andrew Young is he fought for human rights and not only for black people but for all people. He is a man of peace that believes everyone black or white should have equal rights. He has paved the way for many other black leaders. I think Andrew Young probably should be seen in the same light as Martin Luther King Jr. because their mission were one in the same peace and equality.

Bibliography

1.)Haskins, Jim & Kathleen Benson. African American Religious Leaders. San

Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2008.

2.)”NCC President 2000-2001.” National Council of Churches USA. 18 Jan. 2002. 28

Apr.2008www.cau.edu/p_releases/BioAmbassadorAndrewYoung.htm

3.)Russell, Herman J. “Andrew Young Biography.”27 Aug. 2005. HistoryMaker. 26 Apr.

2008.www.thehistorymakers.com/biography/biography.asp?bioindex=1210

4.)Young, Andrew. An Easy Burden. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

5.)Young, Andrew. A Way Out of No Way. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1994.

6.) Young, Andrew (b.1932) “The New Georgia Encyclopedia” 26 Apr, 2008 http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-1395 Andrew Young (b. 1932) www.cau.edu/p_releases/BioAmbassadorAndrewYoung.htm .