On November 10, 2019, Ambassador Andrew Young attended St Joseph AME Church in Durham, North Carolina to help launch the “Andrew Young Alpha Phi Alpha Social Justice Initiative”. The initiative is coordinated by the National Chaplain of Alpha Phi Alpha, Rev. Jay Augustine who also is pastor of St. Joseph, Durham. Mrs. Starr Battle, 3rd Vice President of the Connectional Lay Organization and a resident of nearby Raleigh conducted the interview on TCR’s behalf.
Ambassador Young, thank you for allowing this opportunity to The Christian Recorder, the oldest periodical published by African Americans in the US.
TCR: In an interview you gave almost 60 years ago, you stated that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a “conscience attack” wherein he came back after researching various resources about the War in Vietnam and he finally stated that “the bombs you drop on Vietnam will explode at home.” You said he was talking about inflation, unemployment, and the problems in cities. You seem to agree with this statement. Do these residual effects of various wars still ring true being that we are still in conflict in Afghanistan, Iraq, and in this interesting quarry with Syria?
AY: Jimmy Carter discussed China and the US and stated that China has not had a war since 1979. Billions are spent on war. President Bush was quoted saying trillions have been spent on war in the Middle East and around the world. It sounds reasonable that we could have used that money to the development of infrastructure. I grew up in New Orleans and the infrastructure of the River which occurred in 1956 has not been addressed and remains the same today. That is problematic.
TCR: Do you believe that individuals are still having conscience attacks? If so, in what way? Are they moving in a proactive way in social action and justice reforms?
AY: Usually, doing election time, people “wake up.” Typically, citizens are sleep to a revolution and are in denial. It’s more like $364 billion. Well, if we spent $100 billion in prevention, we have money to spend on education and we will be able to relieve students of the burden of debt. I think that the biggest handicap on this economy is that students are bound by their enslaved by debt so they can’t think. I mean, when I came out of college, I was broke but I could see myself as owning a house because I didn’t have any debt and my parents co-signed. I got a house but students can’t do that now.
TCR: You stated that your counterparts, Roy Wilkins and Whitney Young believed that Lyndon B. Johnson was the best thing that the black community ever had and the support of his war was needed to support civil rights. This action caused conflict with the movement because some thought that the movement would be halted until after the war was ended wherein others thought that the only way to end the war was to consolidate the political base in the South and in the northern cities to elect politicians who were more peaceful. With the current administration, what is the state of civil rights for African Americans and minorities and what does the community need to do regarding supporting politicians?
AY: No question about it, Lyndon B. Johnson was the best thing for the black community at the time. There was no aid for cities (for civil rights), North or South. They were saying that the difference in the South was that we didn’t wait for the government to give us money. We generated wealth on Wall Street and we kind of made the system work for us, including the political system. After Nixon and Ford, we elected Jimmy Carter, Clinton, and Obama. That was the Southern control of the Democratic Party.
The Hispanic population made more money last year than the black population. So, keeping them with us will be more and more of a problem. That’s the reason I think we have to work on the Indian minority (those coming from India). Keeping them in the liberal camp is a problem. I think we do better relating to the gay community because they have suffered and you can’t get elected in Atlanta if you don’t have the support of the gay community. So, where we are now is not so much black and white. It’s pulling together enough of the oppressed people of the world and people of goodwill and conscious to create a majority. Now, that’s increasingly difficult. I had black people in Atlanta who would not vote for Hillary because of some kind of unisex toilet bill that was up here in North Carolina. I said every toilet you ever been in has been unisex because ain’t but one sex in there. You don’t go into the toilet with anybody. Therefore, we must join with other races to be able to stand a chance. Utilize women and join with Hispanics and other minorities to strengthen the dynamics.
TCR: What is the state of our civil rights movement now, in the light of current administration?
AY: It never depended on the administration. Kennedy did not understand the South, but we got him to introduce the civil rights bill before he died. Lyndon Johnson understood the South. Lyndon Johnson was a poor white boy and he understood that the problem of the South was not black and white, it was rich and poor, and the Great Society was an attempt to help all the South keep up.
TCR: Does capitalism needed more of a conscience and move to protect people’s economic rights? How can that be done in our current environment?
AY: Capitalism really needs good sense. I am a capitalist. I think almost everything we did in Atlanta was accomplished with Wall Street money. Maynard Jackson was a graduate of NC Central University Law School. We wanted to build a new airport in 1973. A couple of young black financers from Wall Street, who were in our age group, came and said we can show you how to build an airport without going to/waiting on Washington. We borrowed $400 million and started that airport in 1979. We opened it in 1981 and I became mayor in 1981.
I went back to Wall Street and got $300 million more to build the international terminal and the third and fourth runways. People thought we were crazy and in particular thought I was crazy because they hired a consultant to do a feasibility study that said we didn’t need an international terminal. Nobody wanted it. Well, nobody in the US wanted it but I went to Germany, Japan, Holland, and Switzerland and invited their airlines to fly into Atlanta before they finished the feasibility study. We had four international airlines flying in. Delta and Eastern were not ready to fly out but once they realized all of the money that was coming in, we now have the fourth international terminal that we are building on now. What was a little airline, smaller than Raleigh/Durham airport that I came into even three years ago, is now the busiest and biggest airport in the world. They handle 125 flights every hour. It grosses $50 billion a year and employs a million people. In terms of the investment that’s coming into the city because of the airport, it was about a million people in Atlanta when Maynard became mayor and I was in Congress. We now have 6.5 million.
We still have problems and poverty. We are in charge of it and we are doing the best we can. Our problems now are problems of success. There was a time where the smartest people coming out of school had to be teachers. Now, there are so many job opportunities for people that they don’t want to be teachers anymore. So, our schools are in crisis. Then-President Bush took money away from Title 1, which was aid for the disadvantaged that Lyndon Johnson put into the educational system. Bush changed that, calling it No Child Left Behind. What he actually did was took the money from the schools and gave it to a testing firm that’s on Wall Street where there is not a single teacher on the Board. He robbed the poor and gave the money to the rich. Because he smiled, was nice, and got along with everybody, we don’t realize what damage that did to our community
TCR: You and others stated after the assassination of Dr. King, “If you let people stop the dream when the dreamer is slain then you just encourage people to keep on killing your leadership.” So, the most important thing was to pick up the movement and keep it going. Saying, “There, but for the grace of God, go I and that I’ll probably be next,” did you ever think about giving up after the assassination? What gave you the drive to keep moving going forward.
AY: That was standard for the movement. If anyone is killed then hundreds must take his or her place. That is sort of the way it worked. We did not want to go marching in Mississippi because the movement had moved to Chicago; but when James Meredith went down there and got shot, we had to go.
TCR: You were the conservative voice within the SCLC and Dr. King encouraged that because he needed a good balance between the radical voices. Did you continue this conservative viewpoint throughout your various careers?
AY: I don’t like to use the word “conservative.” He always said we were all clinically insane. You have to be clinically insane to think you going to change this world with the few crazy people we got. He expected me to be reasonable.
I had been taught to control my emotions. My daddy raised me, slapping me in my face, and telling me “don’t get mad—get smart.” We would shadowbox and he’d tap me. If I started to swing wild, he would wop me upside my head and say, “See, you lose your temper, you lose your head. Don’t ever get angry in a fight.”
Most of the people who call themselves militant are people who have given up control of their thinking and they do the emotional thing. Well, that’s almost always suicide. The one time that I decided that I didn’t want to be reasonable and said, “Okay, I am with you,” he stopped and said, “Wait a minute, I don’t want to be killed for nothing.” He said, “I know my days are numbered but you have to give the reasonable position so when they lose their tempers and get angry, you create some room in here for me to make a decision of what it is I am willing to risk my life for?”
See, kids nowadays think they can get mad and have the right to be militant but you didn’t grow up like that in the South when I was growing up. I mean I had the Nazi Party at the corner of my house saying, “Heil Hilter,” an Irish grocery store, and an Italian bar. There were black people in the neighborhood but none of them had children so I had to get along. It was not what my rights were. We had no rights that we didn’t stand up for, think through, and live by.
I think that’s the difference between the South and North. In the South, we were always living side-by-side with white people. Most of the time, we knew that they had all of the power and all the money and all the rights so we had to have the brains.
TCR: What can be done to strengthen the African American base in our current political environment, particularly given your thoughts of black politics? We have two African Americans running to obtain the Democratic nomination for president. What is your thought regarding this action?
AY: Not much can be done to strengthen the politics of African Americans. We are locked into about 12-14% of the US population if you think of the African American base. When I decided to run for Mayor of Atlanta, I deliberately went to find and needed at least 10% of the white community. In most places, if we are 12% of the population, we don’t stand much chance for everybody to be the boss.
Dr. King used to make the distinction between power and influence. You may seem to have power; but actually, influence is more significant than power. The Jewish community doesn’t have a lot of power but the can control a lot through influence. The gay community doesn’t have a lot of power; but behind the scenes, they have a heck of a lot of influence. Women have always had both power and influence but they didn’t organize and utilize it until just recently. Now that women are exercising their power and influence, we are going to see. This is one of the few churches that have always ordained women but women have been running the church since Mary and Martha.
TCR: Black Power itself was something Martin disagreed with tactically. In fact, what he said all the time was, “Jews have power but if you ever accuse them of power, they deny it. Catholics have power but they always deny it. In a pluralistic society, to have real power you have to deny it. And if you go around claiming power, the whole society turns on you and crushes you.” And it was not Black Power that he was against, it was the slogan “Black Power” because he said, “If you really have power, you don’t need a slogan.”
AY: What he’s saying is if you have power, the less you say about it [and] the more you got. If you go around here shouting Black power…Even the militant in the civil rights movement died and the white folks didn’t kill them. They had heart attacks too young. They had ulcers. They had nervous breakdowns.
You look at who’s around. Joe Lowery is still around and he’s 98. CT Vivian is 95. I am 87 and it’s not to the swift or the strong but the one who perseveres. Freedom is a lifetime struggle. There is nobody that’s going to get free in any way, for anything, in time for the next election.
TCR: As a former Ambassador, what is your view on current US foreign policy? Do think we have regressed in our foreign relations; and if so, what can be done to repair the situation?
AY: We don’t have a US foreign policy. We really do not. In fact, most of the people in the Congress when I was there were coming back from the Second World War; and they came back, they went to the GI Bill and they had a worldview by the time they got to Congress. I think half of the US Congressmen don’t have passports and they don’t have a clue.
The president, maybe he just made a mistake but he was talking about building a wall in Colorado, not even knowing the geography of the United States. I guarantee you that most people in Congress would have a hard time finding Ukraine on the map. They talk about Syria and Iran like they are equal. Syria has seven million people. Israel is about eight million people. There are 90 million people in Iran. There are over 100 million in Nigeria.
The world is not what we think it is and not what we want it to be. I was on the Delta Board and kept telling them that they needed to fly to Africa and they didn’t want to. I got Africa Airlines to fly into Atlanta and they saw all the people trying to get there so they started flying. Now, the most profitable flights are from Atlanta to Lagos, Nigeria, and Atlanta to Johannesburg, South Africa. They make more money on those two flights than they do to any flights to Asia. Money talks.
TCR: Can you give some words of reflection on your overall journey and next steps because clearly God is not finished with you yet? I just saw a video wherein you were discussing financial literacy and ways to end poverty through credit improvement. Can you discuss more about that topic as well?
AY: You not only have to have the right to vote in a democracy, you [also] have the right to access capital. That’s not new. That’s what Fredrick Douglas was doing when he went to Lincoln to form the Freedman’s Bank. It was not just the 15th Amendment. We needed money and power. Lincoln was killed three days after signing the bill for the Freedman’s Bank.
That has been our battle. My grandfather knew money and managed money. It was through Masonic Lodges and burial societies. Our ancestors had a much better understanding of money. The AME Church sustained itself. They weren’t getting money from white folk. We respected money and a lot of it started because we were tithers and that meant you had to manage money wisely. People think you have a right to be rich but the Constitution says, “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” They don’t give it to you, you have to pursue it. You have to organize, save, and invest. You have to learn that money can make more money for you then you can make working for it.
TCR: You began your career as a pastor, staff on the National Council of Churches, became executive director of the SCLC, served as US Congressman from Georgia, ambassador to the UN, and mayor of Atlanta. What are your thoughts on the AME Church and its impactful influence? Should more pastors join the ranks of politics?
AY: The AME Church has always been the leader of the movement. It has been the most effective institution in the black community because it says that in the church you must be a registered voter. The Church has always had credit unions. I ran into AME Churches that teach people to manage money.
We haven’t done as much and I think part of that is that pastors move too quick[ly] and there are too many who want to be bishops but that’s not my business. I have seen—time after time—that pastors that can stay in a community inevitably transform it. You need to read Coretta Scott King’s biography because she was a member of Mt. Tabor AME Church. At 15, coming back from choir practice, she found her house burned down and her father praying. He was not an educated man formally; but with the spirit of the AME Church, his prayer was just like the prayer of the pastor of Mother Emanuel in terms of peace, reconciliation, forgiveness, and power by the grace of God.
