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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 03/10/2008 | ||
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Ambassador Andrew Young To Speak At Bridgewater College | ||
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BRIDGEWATER, Va. — Civil rights activist and former ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young will speak at Bridgewater College on March 31 at 7:30 p.m. in Cole Hall. The event, which is part of the Anna B. Mow Endowed Lecture Series, is free and open to the public. Young, who will talk about the relevance of Brethren nonviolence, will also speak briefly at the College's annual Founder's Day Convocation on April 1 at 11 a.m. in the Carter Center for Worship and Music. The College will present him with an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. A native of New Orleans, Young earned a divinity degree from Hartford Theological Seminary in Connecticut and accepted the pastorate of Bethany Congregational Church in Thomasville, Ga., in 1955. He involved himself in civil rights causes and joined the National Council of Churches in 1957. In 1961, Young left his church to work with the Atlanta-based Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a civil rights organization led by Martin Luther King Jr. Young rose to the executive directorship of the SCLC and was instrumental in organizing voter registration and desegregation campaigns in Albany, Ga., Birmingham and Selma, Ala., and Washington, D.C. He was with King when the civil rights leader was killed in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968. In 1972, Young won Georgia's Fifth District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and became the first black since Reconstruction to be elected to Congress from Georgia. He was twice re-elected to the House and, while there, championed the causes of poor and working-class Americans and opposed efforts to increase military budgets. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter named Young ambassador to the United Nations, a position he held until 1979. Young returned to Atlanta and, in 1981, was elected mayor. He won re-election in 1985 and was instrumental in bringing the 1996 Summer Olympic Games to the city. Young was defeated in a 1990 primary bid to become the Democrat candidate for governor of Georgia. Young is currently a Distinguished Executive Fellow and Honorary Professor of Public Policy at Georgia State University's Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. | ||
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Page 2...Andrew Young at BC...03/10/2008 | ||
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Young is also co-founding principal and chairman of GoodWorks International, an involvement that allows him to execute his lifelong mission to advance economic development in Africa and the Caribbean. He has published two books: A Way Out of No Way and An Easy Burden: The Civil Rights Movement and the Transformation of America. He is currently writing a memoir on Africa. ##### | ||