Assignment America; 113; Black Man's Body, White Man's Soul

[background street noise] [background street noise] [Doris Kearns]: I'm Doris Kearns, and we're in Atlanta, Georgia. We've come here today to talk about civil rights and the changing South with Congressman Andrew Young, a black man who came to Atlanta when he was 29 years old to join Martin Luther King in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Like Dr. King, Andrew Young is a minister, and he knows well the Ebenezer Baptist Church on Auburn Avenue. Sweet Auburn Avenue as the blacks here call it out of affection. For Dr. King and his father built one of the most influential congregations in the history of this country. [background street noise continues] Andrew Young was with Dr. King in Alabama, where in 1963 hundreds of courageous blacks, many of them children, participated in a march for freedom that ended when Sheriff Bull Connor unleashed his dogs. [music and shouting]

But Andrew Young was with Dr. King in moments of triumph as well. He participated in the making of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the passge of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. [singing of the song "We Shall Overcome"] And finally, Andrew Young was with Dr. King in 1968, when the famous civil rights leader was shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee. [gunshot] [Dr. King]: But I want you to know tonight [people shouting "yeah" in background] that we as a people will get to the promised land. [applause] So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any

man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord. [shouting] [humming of the song "We Shall Overcome"] [Kearns]: He was one of the leaders of the memorable funeral cortege that Dr. King himself had decreed would be a proper way for a black man to be brought to his grave. [humming and singing of the song "We Shall Overcome"] Mules pulled the cart to the burial ground next to the Baptist church. The mules in the cart symbolizing the black man's historic role in the building of this country. [singing of the song "We Shall Overcome" continues] Congressman Young is want to quote another great black man, another civil rights leader, a man who also knew the streets of Atlanta, Frederick Douglas. In the 19th century, Douglas said that the purpose of the equal rights movement was to save the black man's

body and the white man's soul. So that is what we shall call this program. [music] [music in background] [Kearns]: The Atlanta of today has echoes of the past. The statue of the influential editor Henry Grady is still here. And so are those of other historic figures with meaning for the South, like Tom Watson, the fiery populous leader who lived at the turn of the century and the still unveiled visage of the late Senator Richard Russell. What you see most is activity. Atlanta bustles; it moves. And there is little southern drawl to its movement. An outsider will find here a sanguine, almost euphoric optimism that almost makes one suspicious of people's veracity. It is difficult to reconcile this optimism with the realities that existed here for 200 years. A life that discriminated in a thousand ways against an entire class of citizens. A life filled with

signs forcing black people to stay out of parks, bathrooms, restaurants. We are on our way now to the home of Congressman Andrew Young. He lives here near Cascade in almost entirely black section of Atlanta. In 1970, Congressman Young was the first black to be nominated by the Democratic Party for Congress in some 102 years. Congressman, when when you first came to Atlanta in 1961 to work with Martin Luther King, I understand that some friends of yours in New York advised you against coming because of the prevailing racial attitudes that were here then. What was it like for a black person in Atlanta at that time? [Andrew Young]: Well Atlanta then was, uh, completely segregated. Uh, the hotels were segregated; the restaurants were segregated for the most part. But Atlanta also always had, uh, an independent black community, which was fairly secure and fairly comfortable.

And I'd grown up in New Orleans. And so I wasn't, uh, disturbed very much for about coming back to Atlanta. In fact, I like the South even then better than I did the North. [Kearns]: You say that you preferred leaving New York to come to the South. Is that really possible when you had more freedom in the North than you would have ever anywhere in the South? [Young]: We had lived in the rural South. There was a friendly climate. People knew each other. Ah, kind of very warm personal relationships, even between blacks and whites. Ah, when we moved to New York, the brusqueness, the rush, the ?inaudible? that nobody seems to matter worth a damn whether you're black or white. [Kearns]: Uh, hum. [Young]: Um, it was a little hard to get used to. [Kearns]: Would things have been better in the South if the blacks had not migrated to the North in the 1950s? [Young]: No, we wouldn't have made it. [Kearns]: Economically? [Young]: Uhm, we wouldn't have made it politically. Because you see, the only reason we got votes out of northern Congressman were, was that, uh, we,

we had enough black voters in places like Detroit and Cleveland, uh, New York City, Los Angeles, so that [Kearns]: Oh, I see. [Young]: uh, the, well the electoral vote, uh, which, uh, John Kennedy won by tilted on the little extra vote he got in Chicago from blacks. [Kearns]: And that's why you'd never have had that spread. You would have had [Young, speaking over Kearns] Yeah. [Kearns]: perhaps some power in one section of the country. [Young]: Uh, hum. [Kearns]: Well what happened when you'd see a sign that said whites only or no you couldn't go into a restaurant? I mean were there angers that, that you just would feel welling up inside? [Young]: No, you, you were brought up, in fact, uh, I think my parents when I was, uh, 2 and 3 years old, uh, taught me to laugh at those signs. [Kearns]: Was that right? [Young]: Uh, and they taught me to, uh, pity the people that had to put them up. Uh, and, uh, they, they kind of helped me understand that this was a sickness, uh, in our community that, uh,

one of these days would be over with. They had no idea of putting an end to it, and they certainly didn't think I would. I can remember one incident when, uh, we'd heard that a new motel was opening, and that it, its restaurant was integrated. And, uh, after church the family decided to go to the restaurant. Uh, and they were very embarrassed, uh, trying to tell us that they were not integrated. And, uh, my daughter then was about 2, uh, 2 and a half, right in that mean stage. [Kearn]: Uh, hum. [Young]: Uh, and she was tired from having been through church. And it was I think the only time in our life that she's really thrown a temper tantrum. [Kearns]: Uh, hum. [laughter] [Young]: And she just sprawled out on the floor and went to kicking and screaming. And, uh, it was, in a way, it was, uh, uhm, it was a, a, a great relief for us. Uh,

and, uh, she didn't understand what the situation was of course. Uh, it was just a child reacting to the fact that she wanted to eat and uh. [Kearns]: A very human reaction. [Young]: And uh, I think though that, uhm, well both my wife and I grew up in the South, uhm, and, uhm. You don't like it, but, uhm, you have to deal with it rationally, because to react emotionally you get destroyed. [Kearns]: I've read that, that a part of your, your involvement in the demonstrations that were planned in 1963 in Birmingham to, to really fight against the desegregation in that community was to mobilize the young children to be [Young, speaking over Kearns]: Yeah. [Kearns]: a part of the marchs there. I've often thought about, or the remembrance I have of the scenes when those children were turned on by Bull Connor and his dogs and his hoses. What did it feel like for you knowing that you'd been part of bringing them there and knowing the pain and suffering that they went through as part of that march as you all did?

[Young]: Well, um, it, uh, it felt good. [Kearns]: ?inaudible? [Young]: And, uh, I remember the day that, uh, they turned the dogs loose on kids. Uh, and, uh, a few people were hit by police clubs. Uh, and, uh, Dr. King had just been arrested. And I got everybody back and into the, the church because there was panic. Uhm, and I said to 'em, "Look, you know how many people here have ever been bitten by a dog?" And I guess about half the church raised their hand, you know. And I said, "How many people have ever been hit, hit by a baseball bat playing baseball?" You know, and again a given percentage, you know, raised their hands. And, and, uh, finally you said, "You know that was for nothing. I hear you're a part of a process that maybe you will suffer a little, uh, but it'll be a physical suffering; and I guarantee you if the dog bites you, we'll get your lockjaw

shots and get you stitched up [Kearns, talking over Young]: Hm. [Young]: and you'll be all right in a few weeks." But we got right back up, and we marched right on out of the church and right back into the face of the dogs. Now the interesting thing about that was when you approach dogs fearlessly or crazed, racist policeman, uh, it's amazing how they back down. Uh, [Kearns, talking over Young]: Hm. [Young]: and nobody was bitten by a dog and nobody was really beaten. Uh, and the police then retreated [Kearns, talking over Young]: Yes, I remember that. [Young]: and, uh, started using the fire hoses. [Kearns]: Uh, hum. [Young]: And a fire hose was, uh, it was a terrible thing if it got you up close. Uh, but from a distance on a hot summer day if you're from New York you know a fire hydrant [Kearns talking over Young]: That's right. [Young]: can be real fun. And there was a mixture of, uh, hostility, because we knew they meant the, the fire hoses as hatred uh, and, uh, but also joy. And, uh, if you remember some of those things, I think the twist was popular.

[Kearns]: Uh, hum. [Young]: And I remember a bunch of folk, uh, you know, out doing the twist in the fire hose. [Kearns, talking over Young]: ?inaudible? of the water. [laughter] [Young]: And, uh, at the same time the fire hose cut 'em down, [Kearns]: Uh, hum. [Young]: see. And so it was it was, it was still that mixture of playfulness, of laughing at your oppressors, uh, but still in some sense suffering, uh, physically as well; but doing it knowing that, uh, well those kids, uh, were freed psychologically. Uh, I can remember them, uh, in fact James Bevel, uh, was one of the organizers of that, and he used to talk about nonviolence, uh, as being political psychiatry. And he'd tell the kids, he said you never see a psychiatrist, you know, get mad at his patient. He said this is a sick society, and this is, uh, a, a sick kind of racism, uh, and said you have to be the doctor and they are the patients.

[Kearns]: It wasn't something happening to them, but rather they were creating it in part. [Young]: Well exactly. And, uhm, we had endless workshops with these students. And it wasn't kids. It was, it was really, uh, we said 14 year olds and up. And I remember one little boy 12 years old crying because we wouldn't let him go to jail. And he went and got his mother. Uh, and his mother came and asked us please let him go, you know. And we said if there was some other member in his family that was going he could go along. [Kearns]: I was studying Russian at the time in college, and I remember we saw that the magazines in Russia had put that as their number one issue. And I remember I had the feeling then that they were really fearful that we were looking terrible, as indeed we were, abroad. [Young]: But that was, that was one of the keys to the whole nonviolent movement. Uh, and one of the remarkable things about Dr. King's work was that he did not seek to blame anybody. But in a very Gandhian sense he said you know, uh, we're all victims of the same situation. [Kearns]: You had the Civil Rights Act of '64 and the Voting Rights Act of '65 that came out of those

confrontations. But the mood passes. The American people, especially the whites, go home to where they came from in the north or wherever. And yet the problems still remain. And there are those people sitting in Washington with their buildings to, to sabotage what you've done in your large mass movements all the time. How do you keep the pressure up? [Young]: We never were able to keep the pressure up, and frankly we didn't try. Uh, we developed a kind of rhythm. Uh, and there was a rhythm of confrontation, uh, and then you, you'd had a period of reconciliation, uh, where you achieved your victory. And then you went into an implementation phase, uh, where you wanted things to calm down for instance, uh, so that you could actually integrate the restaurant. So that, uh, you could actually have blacks coming in working as, uh, clerks, uh, in the stores where it had been, you know, heretofore illegal, uh, without any incidents.

Uh, and the period of calm after the, the victory was a very important phase, which we, uh, we both needed personally and, uh, politically. The progress in Atlanta really began with integration. And it was when Atlanta made the decision that it was going to be a city too busy to hate, uh, uh, that, uh, instead of fighting against each other blacks and whites began to cooperate with each other. I think the, the first big settlement was a negotiation of, uh, lunch counter desegregation and new hiring practices, uh, on the part of the downtown business community. [Kearns]: What happens though when, when, when people like yourself and these others who have integrated themselves into the political system receive the criticism that you've just become a part of the establishment and that you're really just like everybody else now in moving through the system? [Young]: Well you look at our former staff people and, and leadership in the movement and, uh, you look down in Greene County, Alabama in the SCLC leadership.

Uh, one is the sheriff, and the other's a probate judge. Uh, and, uh... [Kearns]: And they have an enormous amount to do with daily life down there. [Young, talking over Kearns]: That's right. [Kearns]: And that's the great change. [Young]: And you don't have to march against us, the courthouse when you control it. [Kearns]: Right, right. [Young]: Uh, and, uh, from one end of the, you know, the, you look down in the Georgia state legislature, uh, and they're the leaders of the sit in movement and the leaders of, uh, well from Hosea Williams and Julian Bond and, and, uh Ben Brown. All of them were, were active in the movement in the '60s, but they're no less active now. I mean they're just active in different ways. And I think it's a myth to think that you can ever get out of the system. Uh, I think I learned that the first time I went to Africa and saw a Kentucky Fried Chicken stand on the corner of, uh, Uhuru Avenue and Jomo Kenyatta Boulevard. [laughter] You know, I mean you can't escape. Uh, Coca-Cola, Standard Oil and the Colonel will get you. [Kearns]: Speaking of fried chicken reminds me of Lester Maddox.

[Young]: I think Lester was an accident in the first place, and, uh, he's a terribly, uh, exciting person. Uh, but his ideas really were not productive for the state. Uh, and I think, uh, he was rejected though he spent an awful lot of money and did an awful lot of campaigning by almost 4 to 1 voters in Georgia. And that says that there's a kind of new South which, uh, no longer thrives on racist, negative politics. And I think that same judgment, uh, is true of George Wallace. Not just in the nation, but in the South. I doubt that George Wallace or Lester Maddox could carry Georgia in a presidential campaign, even against a liberal, uh, moderate to liberal Democrat. Uh, I frankly think we've, uh, crossed the hurdle of race, but, uh, we've still got the haves versus the have nots. Uh, and, uh, I think our

children will have to deal with a class clash, uh, on a worldwide basis rather than on a local basis as we did. Uh, that you already see that in the, the rising tide of aspirations in the Third World, the pricing of oil, the battle over, uh, the price of bauxite in Jamaica, uh, the determination on the part of, of the rest of the world, uh, not to be dominated by the West, whether it's a black or white leadership in the West. [Kearns]: I know this is a difficult question [inaudible], but I wonder if it's possible for you to describe how it might be different for your children growing up being black than it was for you when you grew up as a child being black? Is there more pride now, different senses of shame, different kinds of feelings? [Young]: I don't think it's much different. I think that being black is part of, uh, an identity struggle, uh, that you

have to deal with just like you have to do with having red hair, or, uhm... I think almost everybody of every race, creed, and clan, you know, needs some kind of bar mitzvah, uh, something that confirms your identity as who you are and what you are. And I think my children have to go through that. One difference is that whereas I went through it uh, in my 20s, uh, and almost in my early 30s, uh, my daughter who's in college now did it when she was in senior in high, in the last few years in high school. Uh, and the younger child is reading, uh, you know, black literature, uh, as low as sixth grade, [Kearns]: Hm. [Young]: uh, which is where that identity struggle ought to be. The identity struggle in one's life is a part of the adolescent process. Uh, and it was postponed I think by our system and by our, our, the social and political problems

added onto race. Now my children deal with, uh, being black, uh, like you deal with having pimples. Uhm, I, I think my girls have almost more of a difficulty in adjusting to being women, uh, than they do being black right now. [Kearns]: Congressman, I know you're a minister, and I, I wonder whether you feel a sense of moving away from that ministry the more deeply involved you get in politics. [Young]: Well I really think of politics as my ministry. Uhm, in a democratic society, if you talk about feeding the hungry, if you talk about clothing the naked, uh, you're talking about political acts. Uhm, when you pray, uh, the Lord's Prayer, "Thy Kingdom come on earth." You know, if it comes on earth in the United States, uhm, it's going to come through the Congress [laughter] or some such political institution. Uh, not that that's the only way that the kingdom comes. But, uh, that the enormous amounts of

wealth that are spent, uh, whether they're spent on death and destruction or life and development, I think of as at least a moral decision and for me a religious decision. Uh, and, uh, unless our country is going to be able to respond to the crises of the world, uh, the hunger of the world, uh, in a moral fashion, I don't think we'll survive. So I, I think, uh, I'm well, well I'm, I'm just very much, uh, I think an active minister in my role representing my district. I even preach in somebody's church every Sunday. [Kearns]: Does that relate to, uh, something else that was on my mind, which is why the, the ministry was so important in the South in, in the civil rights struggle? [Young]: Well for one thing, uh, from the time of slavery it was the only really independent institution in the black community. Everything else was controlled by the white community. Uh, it was the

primary institution for the education of people. Uh, you learn to read by learning to read the Bible. Uh, and, uh, so from hundreds of years the leadership emerged in the black community in the church. Partially because, uh, other doors were closed. And, uh, when, whenever crises came, uh, whether it was in the, the slavery period or in the sixties, uh, it was usually out of the church that you had black people together, uh, capable of responding. Another thing is that, uh, I think the religious message of the church, uh, gives one a kind of fear, fearlessness, uh, and courage, and confidence. Uh, I can remember my wife saying very early when the Ku Klux Klan came, uh, into our town back in 1954, uh, when I was running a voter registration drive before I met Martin Luther

King and before I got really into nonviolence very much. Uh, she was, uh, you know, refusing, uh, to help us defend our home with a gun. And she said, "You know if you're going to preach about all these religious ideas of life and death and eternal life and resurrection, uh, you just well believe them." [Kearns]: Some of the things I've read about Martin King's death seem to indicate an, an extreme sensitivity, an almost premonition that that death would come. I mean, were you aware of that and being close to him? [Young]: Yeah, I think that was true almost from 1959 on. Uh, and I think one of the reasons for his reluctance between 1959 and say Birmingham in 1963 was he knew that this wasn't a plaything. He knew that, uh, if he gave leadership to this movement he would be killed. Uh, and he'd, uh, he'd talk about it all the time. It's hard to explain, uh, because it sounds crazy, but, uh,

there is a sense in which, uh, I was brought up, uh, not to fear death. I was brought up in a family my where my grandmother thought of death as a welcome friend. And that's very typical of the black community. Uhm, death was not an enemy or something to be feared. It was, uh, it was a victory; it was a triumph over life. Uh, and so when Martin was killed I guess I thought that, uh, you know it was well-deserved rest. That he'd really given more to others in 39 years, uh, than, you know, than you could hardly imagine anybody giving of himself. Uh, and it was almost unfair to ask him to carry on any longer. Uh, and I didn't know where we were going to go or what was going to happen. Uh, but, uh, I really felt like, uh,

well almost felt mad, uh, mad at him for leaving us in this mess. [Kearns]: Hm. [music] [music playing in background] [Kearns]: They used to call this place Buttermilk Bottom. It's where Martin Luther King Jr. was born and brought up, a small part of Atlanta. It has now become a large part of the struggle for democracy. Perhaps optimism is the central concept we've been talking about today. Or maybe it's faith, perhaps even of faith in death. If I were a black living in America today, I'd find it hard to hold that faith. But the man entombed here, he certainly had it. And Andrew Young, his friend and aid, he seems to have it as well. I'm Doris Kearns. Next week on Assignment America, I'll be talking with John Popham, managing editor of The Chattanooga Times. I hope you'll be watching. [Martin Luther King jr.]: Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill in Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every

[Martin Luther King Jr.]: ... state and every city. [shouting in background] We will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last, Free at last, Great God a-mighty, We are free at last." For a transcript of tonight's program, please send $1 to Assignment America, WNET 13, Box 345, New York, New York

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