Andrew Young Receives Lifetime Emmy

Former Atlanta mayor and U.N. ambassador Andrew Young received a Lifetime Emmy Award in New York City Friday evening to honor his work in documentary film.

The civil rights icon—noted for helping to usher the city into its role as the leader of the New South—received the Trustees Award, the highest honor of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) for "Andrew Young Presents," a series of documentaries revealing little-known historical occurrences as well as social and political phenomena around the world.

“This is so wonderful. They don't give it every year, so we're very excited.” said Patra Marsden, Young's executive assistant at GoodWorks International, a consulting firm he co-founded in 1996.

Ambassador Young is not new to film production. As associate director of the Department of Youth Work at the National Council of Churches, he produced "Look Up and Live," a Sunday morning religious show that aired from 1957 to 1960.

Young invited guests of different faiths to spread spiritual messages. Look Up and Live won a Peabody Award in 1960. Darryl Cohen, chairman of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, credits Young with being one of the first African-Americans to integrate national television.

“You are continuing to use television in a way to reach across America with information that is vital to our daily lives . . . It is this work, past and present that we honor.” Cohen wrote in a congratulatory letter.

Indeed, Andrew Young's life has always been about spreading good will and peace.

Born March 12, 1932, in New Orleans, Young's mother was a teacher and his father a dentist. He grew up in a predominantly Italian and Irish neighborhood. For protection, Young's father father hired a boxer to teach him and his brother to fight.

In a 1979 Time Magazine article, Young recalled, “I was taught to fight when people called me 'Nigger,'” Young recalled. “[But,]I learned that negotiating was better then fighting.”

Young could read before he started elementary school, and graduated high school at 15. He entered Dillard University, and then transferred to Howard University in Washington, D.C.

He graduated from Howard in 1951 with a degree in pre-dentistry. His initial goal was to follow in his father's footsteps and practice dentistry. Two experiences during his college years, however, urged him in the direction of ministry and public service.

During his senior year, he was very disconcerted by the snobbery and superficiality among his peers toward less privileged African-Americans. As well, he met a young white man who was about to do missionary work in an African nation. Young, then, decided to forego dental school and go into ministry.

He received a divinity degree from Hartford Seminary in Connecticut in 1955. During the summer hiatus, he would go South and be among “plain, wise, black folk.” Young served as the summer pastor of a church in Marion, Ala., where he met his future wife, Jean Childs, a prominent Atlanta educator.

Young also pastored churches in Thomasville and Beachton, Ga., forming community action groups and urging members to seek the right to vote, even against Ku Klux Klan threats.

In 1957, he returned North to work with the National Council of Churches and produce Look Up and Live.

However, Young and his wife were drawn to the fight for equal rights in the South. They moved to Atlanta and joined the Civil Rights Movement. Young headed the United Church of Christ's voter registration drive. He also joined the SCLC, working alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as his executive assistant and eventually as its executive director.

The professional and oral skills he had acquired in television production and organizational management proved vital to the movement's success. In a 1976 New York Times article, former Georgia Congressman and fellow Civil Rights leader Julian Bond described Young's talents. “King was the spearholder, and Andy came behind and put it all together. He could be the man on a tightrope and he never slipped.”

After successfully navigating the Civil Rights Movement, Young was elected to United States Congressman three times and became  the first African-American representative from the South since Reconstruction. He also served as Ambassador to the United Nations Under President Jimmy Carter; Two-time Mayor of Atlanta; and the Co-Chair of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games.

In 1996, Young co-founded GoodWorks International, a consulting firm that counsels American businesses seeking to enter African and Caribbean markets. GoodWorks established a foundation to support social, economic, and educational advancement as well.

The Andrew Young School of Public Policy at Georgia State University, Andrew Young International Boulevard, and the Andrew Young Center for International Affairs at Morehouse College, and the Andrew and Walter Young YMCA, 2220 Campbellton Road, are all named in his honor.

The following sources were used to complete this article:
Andrew Young Biography at http://biography.jrank.org/pages/2439/Young-Andrew.html and The New Georgia Encyclopedia's entry on Andrew Young at http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Home.jsp.