Civil rights icon Andrew Young’s father taught him an important lesson, one that he has carried his entire life.His father told him that he must face hate with a calm demeanor.“Don’t get mad — get smart,” Young said, recounting his father’s words. “If you lose your temper in a fight, you’re going to lose the fight.”Young spoke about that lesson and others he learned in his 93 years of life during the National Juneteenth Museum’s keynote event June 19 at I.M. Terrell Academy for STEM and VPA in the Historic Southside.In a nearly full auditorium, Young told stories from his life of service, including about his friendship with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and time as ambassador to the United Nations.During his decades-long career, the 93-year-old pastor also served as a congressman and was the mayor of Atlanta for eight years. Even as Young became a major figure in the Civil Rights Movement and a well-known leader, he always came back to his father’s lesson.Young first met King after joining the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He answered King’s mail, a job others had turned down. The two became friends, and Young became a trusted confidant of King’s. Young told a story of visiting King when he was in jail for 10 days in Albany, Georgia, describing how he navigated a tense situation with an infamously racist police force. After days of responding to hostility with calm and friendliness, Young eventually found himself speaking with the police chief, who told him about his life and sought Young’s advice on how to get along with his wife.“You realize that these are human beings,” Young said.
Young also spoke of the day King was shot as he stood beside him, recalling the tragic moment captured in the now famous image of the pair on a balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. National Juneteenth Museum CEO Jarred Howard said Young’s recounting of King’s assassination will stick with him.“We’ve all seen the photo, of course he’s a part of the photo, but that perspective of that day, which is a historic day, was life-changing for sure,” Howard said. “Certainly gave me a new perspective on that day, and on what Dr. King was thinking.”King felt he would be killed — and even joked about it, Young said. “He talked about it all the time,” Young said. “He’d make jokes about it. He’d say, ‘I know there’s a bullet out there looking for me.’”“(King) said, ‘But you all are always jumping in front of me trying to get your picture in the paper,’” Young said as the crowd’s laughter filled the room.Douglass Alligood, an architect who leads the team designing the National Juneteenth Museum, met Young before the event started. Alligood described the experience as “amazing.”“I’ve known about him my entire life, and he’s a legend, of course, so to meet him and talk to him and shake his hand and then hear his stories in a very casual format — I didn’t know most of those stories,” Alligood said. “It hits you immediately, but there’s also something that’s going to kind of grow or take on more meaning over time.”Headed into his last chapter of life, Young reflected on his journey to make the world a better place.“I learned from being wrong just as I learned from being right,” Young said. “And I think I’m here, through all the mess I’ve been through, because most of the time I’ve been able to know the right thing to do.”
McKinnon Rice is a reporting fellow for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at [email protected]. …