Oral history interview with Andrew Young, January 31, 1974
Subtitle: interview A-0080, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: De Vries, Walter, interviewer; Bass, Jack, interviewer; Southern Oral History Program; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project); University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library
Edition: Electronic ed.
Publisher: University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Published: 2006
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; Politics and government; African American politicians; Civil rights; Race relations; Political aspects; Racism; Voter registration
Other titles: Interview A-0080, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Andrew Young, January 31, 1974; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Andrew Young was the first African American Georgia congressman since Reconstruction. First elected in 1972, Young was later appointed as ambassador to the United Nations by Jimmy Carter. Prior to his career in politics, Young grew up in New Orleans, was educated at Howard University, and then attended Hartford Seminary in the mid 1950s. Young returned to the South after seminary and became involved in the early civil rights movement in Georgia, where he worked as a minister for several years. In this interview, Young discusses the nature of racial discrimination in the South and describes his involvement in voter registration drives. Throughout the interview, he draws comparisons between race relations within Southern states and those between the North and South. According to Young, it was access to political power that ultimately altered the tides of racial prejudice in the South. He cites the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as a decisive turning point in race relations. For Young, it was the election of African Americans to positions of power that allowed African Americans to bring to fruition other advances they had made in education, business, and social standing.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on July 2, 2007).

Interview participants: Andrew Young, interviewee; Jack Bass, interviewer; Walter DeVries, interviewer.

Duration: 00:42:21.

This electronic edition is part of the UNC-CH digital library, Documenting the American South.  It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.

Text encoded by Mike Millner.  Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.

Text (HTML and XML/TEI source file) and audio (MP3); 2 files: ca. 67 kilobytes,  77.5 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series A, Southern politics, interview A-0080, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Original transcript: 19 p.

Funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this interview.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

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