Existing comment:
Andrew J. Young Jr. born 1932
Civil rights activist and public servant Andrew Young was educated at Howard University and earned a divinity degree from the Hartford Theological Seminary. While serving as pastor for a church in Marion, Alabama, in the mid-1950s, he was drawn to the civil rights struggle. A superb strategist and mediator, Young soon joined Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), where he worked to register African American voters and organize peaceful protests. He became one of King's principal lieutenants, and in 1964 King chose him to serve as the SCLC's executive director. Young was with the civil rights leader four years later when King was assassinated in Memphis. Elected to the first of three terms in Congress in 1972, Young was appointed US ambassador to the United Nations during the Carter administration (1977), and later served as mayor of Atlanta. He has since immersed himself in philanthropic work and has written about his experiences in the civil rights movement.
Richard Avedon, 1976 |