Andrew Young (second from left) with Bayard Rustin, William Fitts Ryan, James Farmer, and John Lewis (Wikimedia Commons)As some of you may recall, I spent some time this summer exploring the history of the Civil Rights Movement on a bus tour through the South. It is hard to visit Civil Rights museums and sites without encountering images of Andrew Young. For those who are not familiar with him, Young was part of Martin Luther King Jr.s inner circle. He served as the executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a congressman from Georgia, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and the mayor of Atlanta.
In several public statements in the wake of the recent events in Charlottesville, Young has argued that we should stop spending so much time debating monuments and get to work on more important things that will help all Americans. Below are a few Young quotes from a recent post by Jim Galloway at the Atlanta Journal Constitution‘s blog “Political Insider.”
“I think it’s too costly to refight the Civil War. We have paid too great a price in trying to bring people together…
“I personally feel that we made a mistake in fighting over the Confederate flag here in Georgia. Or that that was an answer to the problem of the death of nine people – to take down the Confederate flag in South Carolina.”
The reference here is to 1956 George governor Roy Barnes’s decision to retire the Georgia state flag because it contained a confederate battle emblem. Galloway writes that Barnes’s decision “was a primary reason he lost bid for re-election, split the state Democratic party, and ushered in the current season of Republican rule.”
Young adds:
“I think it’s too costly to refight the Civil War. We have paid too great a price in trying to bring people together…
“I personally feel that we made a mistake in fighting over the Confederate flag here in Georgia. Or that that was an answer to the problem of the death of nine people – to take down the Confederate flag in South Carolina.”
Read the rest here. Later in the piece Young says that the removal of the flag and the political changes that came with it also resulted in Atlanta’s current infrastructure problems. The bottom line for Young, if I read him correctly, is that we only have so much time. Is and has the fight over monuments and Confederate symbols really worth it?
And here is Young on Sunday’s Meet the Press
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5M7sRj5l7o&w=560&h=315]
And here is Young talking about the Stone Mountain monument:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHKaRd4zo94&w=560&h=315]
Some activists will say that Young has probably grown too old and too irrelevant. He represents an older liberalism and non-violent approach to combating racism that has been long forgotten in American political life. As he told Chuck Todd on Meet the Press, “turn down the emotions and turn on the mind.”
I will let the Civil Rights historians decide whether or not Young is best representing the spirit of his own movement here and, perhaps more importantly, if this approach is still useful today.
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