Chattahoochee Tech Foundation Legacy Awards to honor Ambassador Andrew Young in October 7/5/2010 - Ambassador Andrew Young will be honored by the Chattahoochee Tech Foundation at its signature fundraising event Oct. 7 at the Renaissance Waverly Hotel in Atlanta Georgia Trend magazine is serving as the presenting sponsor for the sixth annual Legacy Awards luncheon.
“After the challenging process of merging three colleges and three separate foundations into one, the foundation trustees wanted to honor someone who is a unifier and who brings people together,” said Melinda Ashcraft, chair of the Chattahoochee Tech Foundation. “Ambassador Young was a natural selection for this tribute. He has a history of great work from his dedication to civil rights to his political career and now to his continued activism in favor of human rights.”
Young, a native of New Orleans, began his professional life as an ordained minister. He has worked for civil and human rights through his roles as a congressman, United Nations ambassador and mayor. A scholar of Gandhi’s concept of non-violent resistance as a tactic for social change, Young encouraged African Americans to register to vote – sometimes facing death threats in doing so. In 1964 he was selected as the executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, becoming one of Dr. Martin Luther King’s closest allies.
His political resume includes becoming the first African American from the Deep South since Reconstruction to be elected to U.S. Congress. It was an office he held until 1977 when President Jimmy Carter appointed him as the first African American to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Following his two terms as mayor of Atlanta, Young became co-chair of the committee that brought the 1996 Summer Olympics to Atlanta. He is now co-chair of Good Works International and has authored two books, A Way Out of No Way and An Easy Burden, Civil Rights and the Transformation of America.
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