and author ernie suggs. ernie asked you all probably know covers race and culture for the atlanta journal-constitution . he's a graduate of north carolina central university and we thank the alumni association for their support. he was selected as a nieman fellow at harvard university nowserves on the fellowship board . don is a multi talented graphic artist and designer. he got his formal training at columbus college of art and design in columbus ohio and those of you who have already gotten a copy of the book "the many lives of andrew young" will see don's amazing work in the layouts there. i had the pleasure of working with don when he created an exhibit at the kings center. it was an exhibit about president carter and martin luther king, both atlanta nobel peace prize were winners. then most importantly, ambassador andrew young. there has been a lot said about ambassador young over the past week and you will hear a lot more tonight. i just want to relay one personal story that i think typifies andrew young to me. we hosted reporter catherine johnson a few years ago to talk about her relationship with coretta scott king and she was in conversation with andrew young . during that program the former first lady barbara bush had passed away while the program was running so we got to the end of the program and i thanked catherine and i thanked ambassador young and i mentioned that barbara bush had passed away and ambassador young without pausing or leaving the stage offered a beautiful prayer of remembrance for mrs. bush. because that's the type of person he is. so please join me in welcoming ernie suggs, don bermudez and ambassador young . [applause] and i think at this point it might be fitting since his birthday was on saturday if you will join me in l. [singing] happy birthday to you. happy birthday ambassador young. happy birthday to you. [applause] ernie, thank you. >> thank you tony. this is crazy the cost i've been up in the audience many times for these events. i sat on stage many times as a moderator but i've never in my life been talking about the book i've written. so i appreciate you all coming out here. when tony told me, tony called me and said he wanted to do this i decided that he called me and said it was allow. and i was more excited and he said that book tv is going to be broadcasting so tv the cameras are there.t then he told me he opened up more seats that sold out so i said this is crazy because i've never been this popular before in nmy life . i was telling tony this and i finally made it, i'm finally on c-span. you're going to become a big new york times bestseller. those of you who know tony i was just talking and going on for five minutes and i look over and he says you know that andthe young is going to be there to . so i know that you all are here to talk to the great ambassador andrew soyoung so i'll introduce my brother and you can give him a round of applause andrew young e. >> let me introduce my homeboy from new orleans who went through piles and piles of memorabilia. and who knew that my mother required me to write every week. when i went away to college. and her thing was if i don't get a letter out assume that everything is alright and you don't need any money. well, i have a cold every week i was away to college. and he'd gone through that i missed on exhibit at tulane university in new orleans where my mother took over and then the library on auburn avenue where there's something like 5000 books. 540 boxes. okay. but he did the grunt work of pulling together the pieces of my life since i didn't have anything thto do but living, i am really grateful. damn, i am somebody. [applause] >> i want to read something that you wrote for the atlanta constitution and on sunday i wrote an essay about the relationship with ambassador young. he got 26 years and when i say in the name of the book is the many lives of andrew young i write over the years i've carefullywatched how people address andrew young . they use standard practices to upper for them as ambassador. james orange hiwho many of you know call him my leader but they called everybody back. andrey andy is preferred by those who know and casually but sometimes he gets congressman or mayor or reference and even some africans call him king. there are a group of folks who call him uncle andy because he's almost like a father figure. i choose to call him brother. my brother andrewyoung . i want to ask you a question for qu"the many lives of andrew young". when you look atyourself in the mirror who are you ? >> that's what i tried to figure out every day. and basically well, when i left college i felt like i all my life until that time. though i had a diploma. and i ran to the south of king felton because at least 1951 everything was osegregated. the only place we could stop was at a mission with kings fountain. my mother and father were there at the conference i went out running the fountain. and when you run towards the mountain you're running downhill . you don't realize what you're going faster and you're supposed to then i decided to run to the top ofthe mountain .y i was already exhausted. and i just passed out i think you know what happened. but when i woke up or opened my eyes and came to, the world just looked different. and it hit me that everything i saw had a purpose. the trees, the cows. the cornfields. the sky. and there wasn't a weight. everything i see here has a purpose. and whoever made heaven and earth couldn't have made everything without a purpose except me. so i came down from the mountain figuring i got to have a purpose and i don't care what it is. i don't need to know. one day at a time. and i do the best i can today and tomorrow will take care of itself. i tell you this long way because the truth of it is i don't have a clue who i am. >> .. somebody used to say it's one of the t favorite sayings, the world and balance in which way it turns depends on what decision you make that day. i don't think of it that dramatic but i do figure everyday you have to make a difference some kind of way to somebody. it makes for really interesting life. >> you were describing a biblical way, he went up the mountain at university having to fight your father who wanted you to be a dentist and you came down the mountain? >> i think so but again, i wanted to be an athlete, to so i was on. the swim team all winter and track team all spring so physically and mentally, i could have flunked out of school but it was too easy not to. [laughter] but i really only, i really didn't care what i was learning, i care about not embarrassing my parents brought from that time on it was me and whoever made me. >> your fingerprints are all over the world and we are at the carter center at the jimmy carter presidential library and this facility came about when you were mayor, tell us about your relationship, the forward yourwe book. >> i think he's one of the truly great men i've known. clearly the most disciplined man i've ever met. as long as i've known him, whenever i call up and get an appointment, i know i've got 15 minutes. [laughter] i see that as an improvement because when his and government you only got five minutes because he thinks of his time as sacred and you could take a picture, you could hear what you wanted to say and he could either answer it or silence somebody and you are out with an five minutes. even the white house i could see him anytime but something about him when he gets to your points, he's got other things to do. he really does value time more than anybody i know and time is important. sixty seconds and, i can't abuse it, i must use it, i can't afford to lose something like that. >> always quoting that. [laughter] in 1996 you write your autobiography. eai can't recall how many years that is but this book comes out, how do you feel? you look at it of course, what are your thoughts about the book? >> well -- [laughter] you all did a wonderful job ande it really looks like something five or six years to put together and i think he did it in two months so is the kind of summary of life, particularly my life and my times that, i shouldn't confess that probably. [laughter] i've read almost every book president carter row except the one about his presidency. [laughter] this is different from that, this is human life i've been privileged to be part of and it covers everything that is the kind ofer thing that would give people a very good feeling about me and make them feel i was really important but i wish i had you all working with me on my other stuff. [laughter] and we take in time because where the book is week is my time in atlanta as mayor and that may be the most important time of my life. the united nations was extremely important. and i told him just this afternoon. he called me to. the pj patterson he called me to wish me a happy birthday. and i said you remember. when you helped us put together the panama canal treaty. and he do you remember when you helped us put together thed, panama canal? he said yes. i said did you k know nobody kns anything about that? the hangup on the panama canal treaty was a pastoral. castro supported the canal committee, the senate would have voted against it but if he attacked the treaty, the people of panama would have voted against it so the whole success of the panama canal treaty was to keep castro quiet. president carter came to me and he said andy, you know a lot of these fellows a good while, haven't you? said yeah, do you think you can find two or three i can get castro to stay out of this? i said i think we can. i came back to him after a while, mexico i think, venezuela and all of them at the young communists in high school with castro and all became democrats and wrote allies of the united states so when i tracked a few of them down, they said we can get this done, let us handle it and sure enough, it went smoothly and nobody in the state department had a clue. [laughter] the night after the treaty, we stayed in the same hotel and president carter called me and said, how many of those guys who helped you are in this hotel? is that most of them. he said can you gather around 11:00 tonight? i said sure. he said i'd like to thank them personally. i rounded up half a dozen presidents and they were sitting around and it was really like one, it was very religious, they realized they'd done something together that was sort of unthinkable and they might have saved the western hemisphere but that sort of the way things work with him. >> i want -- let's talk about atlanta first. i was told how you and her ride around the city, you're proud of what you see, buildings and construction and what's happening at the y airport, he's made a major impact. >> right here. i mean, i figure between the presidential parkway and 400, i was cussed out close to a hundred times. [laughter] by my friends. [laughter] they were people who supported me and i didn't lie, i said i wasn't for more roads until he realized there was the possibility of another 150,000 square feet of office space and housing that would descend on this place because the airport was already built and we would not have been able to function in the city without this presidential parkway. even john lewis. [laughter] voted against it. all of my friends voted against it. even john put his name on it. [laughter] i was driving from sandy springs, i went early mornings and the sun was just coming up over the city of atlanta and i get emotional about stuff like that. i can remember the groundbreaking of the ritz-carlton. they gave it another name now but when lenox square was a little row of shops and when the tallest building downtown was the highest and the meeting i had with marriott and john about building the marriott and billd marriott built 72 hotels while i was mayor, nobody could believe so i was operating on things that i knew to be happening and when he was mayor, we averaged $5 billion a year in new investment, building permits. 5 billion a year is some total of all investment that goes, the whole country. there is a nation in europe that's grown like we have grown. i don't take credit for it but i sure am proud of it. [applause] >> we talk about the event away and we talk about 1946 for conference at the ymca. 1951, you hear the parents they have more rights in atlanta. he moved to atlanta in 1961 and worked with doctor king and 20 years later, where we are now having host the olympics, busiest airport in the world, is that what the atlanta way is, your first impression and what you see now? >> the event away didn't happen until about 60, 59, 60 it was, i'm in allen's -- maybe go back a little further. i don't know what year that was but one heart feel lost and he lost the election because he gave delta a free pass to come to atlanta and offered them all the land they wanted for a dollar a year h for 50 years, he painted $90000 for all the basic land at the event airport and he put up red lights and they voted him out over it. there's a group of people who did not wantd change in the grop of people who saw change as inevitable and most of those were related to coca-cola because the decision that started it all, the soldiers defending the united states want to be able to drink a coca-cola anywhere in the world and that is in addition to being patriotic, probably the best decision any company ever made and we immediately on that decision a world-class city. we didn't know it get but they come back from south africa and he been there when they voted and he's from i think georgia and he is mr. woodrow and ivan allen, resident of the chamber then, they did not want atlanta to be a backward city and they started talking about something that ended up being named the plan of improvement. it almost didn't come out until sam was there and god bless sam, he's passed on a day or so ago at 94 but he was in the state legislature 30 some years and was mayor but all of this had been evolving and they were dreams. jackson comes along and i got elected to w congress and wasn't supposed to get elected, the district was i think 38% black and more black turnout, 4% black turnout and we got more white folks voting for me and i beat a very good republican and we became, we were always good friends and rodney, things were just changing fast but i don't know how i started this -- >> lewis talk talking about the event away. >> i attribute it to a woman by the name of helen, i do know who she worked for but told the business community what to do and the city too busy to hate was her motto. she worked for ivan allen, president of the chamber of commerce, she worked for coca-cola, goodwin but she had away and i was one reason i'm so grateful because when i lost my first race to congress, she is worried about racial division and i think he and jesse got together and he appointed me chairman, cochairman of the relations commission with archbishop and randy taylor of the presbyterian church. it was a small group but a powerful representative group but they were all kinds of race and class and respect in the civil rights movement. and based oncl race class so whn it happened, the packing company, t there were about sixf these during the summer but understood the dynamics so well we could settle it in a matter of days because i think meet was one of black woman didn't take her insulin, forgot to take her insulin and started feeling dizzy and asked to go home to get hern insulin and herup supervisor said is even missus a days work, you couldn't miss a days work so she passed out. every said she died because he wouldn't let her go home and get her medicine so thousands of workers walked out. you got helen your hands if it's not shut down quickly. i've been doing that for a living for mount in luther king so we were handling a strike every other week without any trouble because we have respect from the white and the black community and we have to respect the poor people because i had been jail when i first came back and that's why i am grateful because it took me out of the movement. [laughter] >> for those of you who have a popular book, you see how beautiful it is, a beautiful design d -- [applause] idleal donald is here but donald loves to talk. i like to watch television and don't call me in the middle of my favorite tv show and talk for two hours so i put it on pause. an ambassador young is from : you traveled there several times in the archives you found a lot of stuff. talk about the process. know, ir sometimes we have ideas. and but anyway this in this case. it was an accelerated timeline. but more importantly we had an institutional knot. we had a knowledge of your life your story. been working ambassador young since 2007 so we kind of >> we kind of knew this happened weo just had to find the answer: the visuals. over the summer probably see maybe 3000 images digitizing it wasn't specific the book because we have that catalog we were able to see something and ambassador young's mother was a very good organized, he kept every scrap of paper that had ts do with him and his brother. they had everything in thise archives, only four boxes the letter from president carter in the box and i just said i don't know what else is in there but i'm going down dry and i went down and met with the archivist and they had images, ambassador young taking trenches in austria 1953 i think it was and pictures, he's riding on the back of the picture, he's telling his mother and penmanship of ambassador young is very good, artistic. >> she's the only teacher -- she put her hands on my shoulder and said you form your letters well. you write just like the penmanship and i've been writing for that lady ever since. i've even married to fourth grade teachers. [laughter] >> fourth grade, fifth grade, i am promoting. [laughter] >> we got all of the images, president carter, 85 so they had rich items in the archives in new orleans and i was driving around and called and said what's the street name of your church you grew up in? take picl street and all of this all these different things. and so we got back to atlanta and we did all the archival search in the auburn library research center, which they had a lot. it was a lot because you're pulling you probably i don't know. i didn't do a photo count on how many they having that book, but you're going from a let's say 4500 images to let's say, you know, maybe a hundred two hundred fifty. and then someone asked well, how do you decide? part of the goal is they picked the ones where i was really good looking that was that was natural. because and i didn't have anything to do with it web you got to tell about so the reason he has so many great images because he had a relative in new orleans who had a photo studio. and and you could tell the first. the first black owned photography store in new orleans was owned by my aunt. and she wasn't actually my aunt my grandmother. had six children, but she raised 11. and i don't know how all of that happened, but that's that was creole new orleans and one of my aunts started a photography store right on the corner of rampart and canal street. and it's where i had my first job. i mean i was i had to get there every morning and at seven o'clock. and scrub the floors and dust down everything and they taught me how to develop pictures but i mean i i had a background in photography and i appreciation of photography and there was well, somebody gave me one of these. big speed graphics. in fact it was the director the ymca. when i was about 13 14 years old and so my hobby and in high school was photography so if you are going to just go back to when ernie set out called him and talked him for two two hours. we were working. i was missing my tv shows up. that's one of the great photos in this if you have a copy of the book is on page 17. of this is you probably. a year old the less than a year old. yeah. yeah, so i think we're going to i have some more questions, but it we're going to ask also have q and a so if you have a question, please start lining up if you have any questions, but let me ask you this you have you know, the name of the book is the many lies of andrew young and it seems to me that you know, you are a top-flight athlete growing up you were i i have a feeling that if you wanted to do better at howard you could have you would have but you did very well at seminary you became a noted civil rights figure. you left that you became a us congressman. then you became a united states un ambassador the mayor of atlanta now, you're a philanthropist. you with your with the end of young foundation. so does everything come easy to you? it must i mean because i have never known like i don't have a clue as to what tomorrow will do for me. i mean, i really don't i i didn't know. i didn't know i was going to end up supporting jimmy carter. until the night i supported i started okay i was very cautious and then the one of these new york newspapers did an attack on him. village voice village voice did an attack on him calling him a racist. and i was making a speech somewhere in pennsylvania. and joni powell called me up and said we need you to. kind of do an answer. to this and i said well i don't know how he got it to me, but he read it to me and i said that's enough. and he said can we write something for you to send out i said no. i want to write it and i stayed up the rest of the night. they put the whole page. of the village voice was the letter that i wrote. and it was really answering. the editor of the village voice in julian bond and julian's problem with jimmy carter. julian really was a black aristocrat. i mean his daddy had a phd he'd gone to you know, exclusive prep schools. all over and and and he was very uncomfortable with just the southern twang of jimmy carter and so when i got through writing and headed back to jody. they put it on the front page of the village voice and that was the week before. the new york primary? okay, and but until that night i will support more, you know only because i was in congress with him and all of the congressmen got together and decided that they wanted someone from the house of representatives as a candidate and i signed on not really knowing him or thinking about it, but once that you know hit the front pages. it went statewide. and jimmy carter carried. new york so he had no trouble carrying in, florida i see a bill crane, but i want to ask one follow-up question bill you i wrote sunday that you were never afraid to talk. you're never afraid to voice your opinion even when it's not popular. so you talk about when you did not support you you weren't sure about supporting jimmy carter 30 years later. we had the barack obama run for president. you famously said i don't know if it's famous to you. but you said that you want him to be president in eight years not in 2008. so you've never been afraid to say what's on your mind even though it's not there again. my mother's godchild. was later, she married. well, grant hills. she's grant hill's mother basketball player say but shopping hill calvin hill, but she and hillary clinton were roommates said at wellesley is it? well, so yeah. yeah, and so i had been hearing about hillary clinton since she was a in college. and she she really see they graduated right after martin's death 68. and ed brooke was the convention commencement speaker and he gave a speech. supporting the war in vietnam you know. two months after martin luther king's been killed. and hillary got up. and through her paper away and she dressed down. the only black senator in in the congress and she told him to bits. say and their picture was on the cover. i think of look magazine. so i'd been following her since she was 17. and and i had never met obama. and i made the mistake of reading the wrong book first. so if you read his book on his childhood. and you get who he really is dreams of my father said dreams of my foot, but i didn't know that one. the first time i heard of him paid attention to him. i happened to be in hawaii and his book that he wrote just came out. and so i read it on the way back from hawaii and it wasn't anything that anybody else had was saying i mean, that was not a good book. say i mean it wasn't a good book. i mean it didn't like. jimmy carter's book why not the best was so arrogant see what i mean? see? i mean it really was who in the hell is this georgia cracker saying why not the best? but you read it and you really said, you know. he is pretty good. yeah, well, it was nothing shocking like that about obama's book and so i didn't pay much attention to it. whereas i had 20 years of experience i mean gene my first wife and hillary will co-chairs of the children's defense fund. hillary had been down in mississippi registering voters say walk in the streets of mississippi roads of mississippi, hillary and her friend hitchhiked to alaska and had worked in a salmon factory. so i mean that's one hell of a woman for me and i didn't want to make the decision on race. the other thing is the country was so screwed up. that's what always happens. they wait till something is really screwed up and then they turn over to somebody black. with with you know her husband with pretty good experience and and and he would she would have been a great president because she wouldn't have listened to him. yeah. say and so everything that i valued appointed to hillary first and and then barack, okay. and the country might have been better off if he'd gone that way but that wasn't right bill bill. crane. furniture shows up if i didn't get caught online been fine ambassador. i've had the pleasure of seeing you speak in a number of roles in your life. but i will never forget your remarks in centennial olympic park. just days after the bombing and you have many skills and talents and everybody here knows that but you are always able to calm waters. when they are tempest teapot boiling you are always able to give us that bigger picture and like you said on the top of king mountain. just kind of seeing everything a little differently and we all needed the reset button push that morning, but i watched as you came up to the podium you pulled out as you often do. remarks repaired prepared for you because it was a very important moment. there were a lot of seats already sold and weren't sure if the volunteers were going to show up then you put them back in your pocket. and as you always do you just extemporaneously went on for 30 to 40 minutes you never oh, you never or you never stammer. what inspired you that morning? because i can remember pieces of that speech now from that morning in 1996. well, i can't but what inspired me was my first church. was in thomasville and beachton, georgia. now beached and is halfway between thomasville and tallahassee. it's a little crossroads town. and the members of that church. war had come to georgia from alabama when the slave master would let them learn how to read him wouldn't let their pastor teach them how to read. the pastor came over to georgia. there was a congregational church school there. and he moved the whole church out of alabama in the middle of the night and came to georgia see and because of the school, but when i got down there as their pastor, they would georgia church and they said now preacher. we know you didn't been up north the school and all. but down here. we don't believe in paper in appropriate and said if you guys something for us. you said we wanted to come from your heart? and said if it's on paper. we just want you to know. about a third sunday. they won't be anybody in church. say so i think i was 21 then. and so i started realizing that i had to preach the way these folk wanted me to preach. and and that's the way it. seems to work. now well the it's the church. feeding you. and not all the spirit. i don't know which are both. because as soon as you get up and say good morning church. amen brother the major plane. i mean it's a give and take. preaching in a country church in georgia is a conversation? is not a lecture. and i guess. i've done that so much that. i wasn't thinking about what i wanted to say. i was thinking about what? the people needed to hear and it works out most of the time. you know. it's noted that these are my notes. and we were in the green room and i pulled them out. i was writing some notes and he told me to put it away and just talk she said oh, right it down don't write it. yeah, so, yes, you have a question. hi first i am honored to be in your presence from one new orleans to a fellow new orleans. i am 45 and you are 90 and you have done some amazing things into out the world. would be one word of inspirational or encouragement to my generation that is coming up behind you today. well i don't think that. well, let me encourage you. and you take care of your generation. when i when i came down from the mountain. in 1951 i ended up in theological seminary. that september and somewhere along the line. somebody gave me a book. it was a little devotional book. and the title of it was testament of devotion by thomas kelly it's a little quaker book. and there's a it's really in the first couple of pages. this is something like deep within us all. there's an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul. a quiet place yet a speaking voice. eternity is at our hearts. pressing against our time to our lives. calling us to minute. astounding destiny. and calling us home to our himself. and you listen to the still small voice within you. and go where it said, you know, you'll be all right. sassy, i see tony creeping up. so i want to ask you one one last question if that's okay. we can do all night if you want, but what's the what's the most important thing you've ever done in these 90 years. well, you know, i've been figuring that out since you open the book together. and i decided. the in 1964 martin luther king sent me to saint augustine, florida and the congress was in session. and it was in the middle of the filibuster. of the 64 civil rights act and the clan was so wild. and so violent. i mean up until that time there had been more people hurt. it's the only movement we were in that i've been a part of. where the hospital bills were bigger than the bail bond bills. i mean it was really ruthless and dr. king sent me down there to stop the movement. he said what one he didn't want any more people hurt unnecessarily. he really believed that the civil rights bill would pass within the next two weeks or so. and he didn't want people hurt for nothing, but he also knew. that if for some reason or other the situation got out of hand. and it became violent. instead of nonviolent that that would kill the civil rights bill. so i go down to stop this to stop the march. and i mean my brother. hosea williams was also my nemesis. because he didn't believe jose jose was in a foxhole in germany well first place he he volunteered for the military when he was 16 or 17. because it was the only place he could go to legally kill white people. and and that was his background, so he was in a foxhole. and they had been a direct hit. and when they came to get the bodies out. he was the only one alive on the bottom of the bodies. and he came back. a disabled veteran after 11 months in the hospital on crutches with a purple heart and in uniform and drank from i mean it didn't even drink from a water fountain. he he bought. a cup to get water from a fountain that said white only. and some you know young thugs roughed him up as a you know. a veteran will a purple heart and just coming out of a hospital and second world war. and he decided that god wanted him to be killed. here for his people. he was always trying to get himself killed. yeah. i mean literally he he was so fearless it was. well martin luther king confessed that we all had to be clinically insane. because nobody in that right mind would think that a ragtag bunch like us? change the nation. and he concluded himself. he said, you know. i should know better. and but but anyway, he sent me down there. and when i came by the park and saw the clan through saturday night they were drunk and breaking bottles and chains rattling and hooping and hollerin and going on and so is the last place you'd want? to march and i walk in the church in jose says there's dr. king has sent andrew young down here to lead you all down in the march and i said no jose. he said andy you got to take these people a little bit. but so i said, well i can get them out of the church away from him and then maybe i can be reasonable with them and get them to reason so we got out we got to the corner. we saw in a clan. we saw the crowd we heard all the noise and i got everybody in a circle to pray. praying that they'd go back to the church. and then some says the hollows be not dismayes things. whatever be tied. god will take care of you. and i said, oh -- these folk want to march. and my job then became how to let them march without getting anybody killed. and so i kept them on one side of the street and we walked down to where the clan was and then i said you all stay here and i went over by myself and i was i mean i was i thought i was making sense and i was having reaching some of the leaders. to somebody came up behind me. and he hit me with something or other. and but i don't know how long i was i was kicked and beaten for a good little while but when i came willie bolden pulled me up. and i said we can't go back now. we have to go down to the next corner and going down to the next corner and confronting another. plan group this time when they swung at me i was i was ready to duck and dodge and i didn't get hit. until there was a great big. i mean, i think he's actually six seven. i've met him since oh wow. he came in policemen and see the clan was deputized by the sheriff. to beat us up. but the police in saint augustine really didn't want any clan violence so they didn't want his marching, but this guy stepped in the crowd and said you all get out of the way you fool around and kill one of these people some of these people and none of us want that to happen. and so they let us march on through well. that saturday they wanted to march in the clan wanted to march in the black community. and we didn't know what would happen because it was mostly the women and children that were leading the marches to teenagers the men did march. they said they couldn't be nonviolent and i went back home and cussed them out for being college, but when the clan came down through, lincolnville it was daytime. but they were initiates and sheets and we had guns under the sheets. and people started singing i love everybody i love everybody in my heart. you can't make me doubt him. because i know too much about him. i got the love of jesus in my heart. that of the contrast of the violence of the week two three weeks before and the response of people singing a hymn to the clan. i think had an impact. on the senate and that tuesday they passed the civil rights act. shot and i think we i think i have time for one more question. i'm gonna ask you i'm a reporter, you know hank my yes. oh, that's okay. so let me ask you this question before we talk about these images. we're gonna talk we're gonna end on the book because i want to sell the book because my name is on. we have a new mayor in atlanta in november. we have a national election where the house is in can be flipped and we're on the brink of world war 3. so as a former mayor as a former congressman and a former un ambassador, where do where is atlanta the country and the world going? the hell and no, seriously. i mean believe it or not. i was i was wishing that jimmy carter was president. oh now now, okay, and the reason was that. he and i shared a certain. religious insanity that we believed in the power. we believed in the power of the holy spirit and believed in miracles so just like he believed he could pass the panama canal treaty, he believed he could get israel and egypt together. everybody, everybody said man is insane t and they've bee together, not a single israeli has killed an egyptian, 50 some years ago nor has any it should been killed in israeli but jimmy carter was really to think outside the proverbial box. i went to congress same time joe biden did. if i was as close to joe biden as i was to jimmy carter, i think joe biden has the same humble spirit jimmy carter had. the only difference, he's roman catholic and the spirit moves a little slower. [laughter] forgive me all my catholic friends but just the people who have called me, i was talking to the president, former president of nigeria and i said you are to be president now because when south africa had the upper hand and threatened to destroy africa, jimmy carter, they went to church together and jimmy carter got up and read the old testament scriptures and said i first heard of nigeria when i was doing a car wash to send books to missionary school in nigeria. when the president of nigeria gets up to read than new testament structure, he says i want to thank you, mr. president, i was a boy who had to walk threels or 4 miles every day to get to that school but that's where i learned how to read and write but that's also where he became, he ended up somehow being the number one student in the entire british empire commonwealth engineering school so he's brilliant, tough and mean and anytime there's anything wrong in africa, folks call him up and i was with him in a situation like this, he invited me to come and i didn't know it was a trap but it was because we had oil rising in south africa trying to blow up oil in angola and we had to save the oil without getting the u.s. involved so i was there in nigeria and he sent for me. and said we are meeting with the president of angola. ... m out of what we talked to hm into allowing. weoi talked him into allowing, t was gold foil then, to increase their gas oil production. we would not pay for it. we would put the money in an escrow account so that after the war between portugal and angola was over the money would go to whoever won a settlement. so he got the president of angola to agree to increase oil production and that's one of the reasons prices came down. that was towards the end of the carter administered should and i was thinkinggh to myself, we cod do that right now with venezuela. and we had a young man who ran for president of venezuela who happen to have a harvard undergraduate degree and really, i mean a really wonderful guy. he came close and they put them in jail but he was still in his 40s. it was here this week and i was talking with him about ways that we could increase the oil production of venezuela and let that flow into the market in exchange of letting the koetters habit for two more years and then get away with their lives and all they could steal. it's cold but it's not bloody. and i think those are the kinds of things that i think even with the people jimmy carter could find grace and mercy. i think that is what the world really needs now. there can be no winners. in fact we were almost a little late because we had a call from somebody from montgomery alabama that got stranded in ukraine and he and his wife and baby and they had adopted a 3-year-old ukrainian kid and everybody had a passport. him. they were trying to figure out how they could get him back to montgomery alabama without citizenship so we were trying to make the rigors of democracy work. and we got a response from the state department in about 10 minutes. it was amazing. so, i think this is a time when we need a miracle. we need prayer. this song i like i don't feel no waysre tired, we have come too r from where we started rome and nobody told us the way would be easy but i don't believe he brought us this far to leave us. >> i think that's a great way to close this out. [applause] and thank you sir. i want to say one more thing about the book rate for those of you who have not purchased it is available at the acapulco -- a cappella bookstore and will be on sale officially on march 29 and you can order it on amazon or new south books and all your favorite bookstore so please go out and get in if you live here in atlanta the millennial gate museum has an exhibit the many lives of andrew young o which is based on the book so please go by and check that out and pick up of the book in one of the things we wrote about this weekend is andy young has seven or eight different monuments in the city of atlanta named after him so if you're in town stop by does. it would be an isil scavenger hunt to find all the places named after andrew young. including two statues of that's pretty impressive. do you want final words to close out? >> yeah i'm glad you wrote this book because my grandchildren now really the 10 and 12-year-old can read this and they can read it and understand it and and it's not too heavy and it's not too complicated. the pictures show and a possibly blessed life. i don't know why the looks down on me and blessed me so that my grandmother said to whom much is given of them much will be required so that's the reason i'm still hanging around here. there's something else left for me to do. [applause] >> you are blessed and i'm blessed to have done this book. >> ernie mentioned the books that we have in the lobby and the nice thing is they are signed as well. a wonderful keepsake of this evening. it has been a fabulous evening and you know i think back to the civil rights leaders that we have lost during the last couple of years with its john lewis hank aren it just goes on and on its been wonderful to spend the evening with a remarkable life of andrew young. please join me in thanking ernie suggs and ambassador young. [applause] >> after the death of george floyd millions of americans marched to protest racial disparities. often these rallies focused on monuments as the symbolic meeting place for showing who was honored in america and whose lives mattered and whose lives did not. >> good evening everyone. i am bradley