television companies, , supports c-span2 as a public service. >> if you're enjoying booktv, then sign up for newsletters using the qr code on the screen to see the schedule of upcoming programs, author discussions, but vessels and more. booktv every sunday on c-span2 or anytime online at booktv.org. television for readers. >> by with quick introduction of brass not so quick introduction because it's quite the impressive bio, journalist and author ernie suggs has been reported for the "atlanta journal-constitution" since 1997. currently covering a variety of breaking news and investigative stories for page a1. he briefs reported for newspapers in new york city and durham, north carolina. he's a veteran of more than 20 years as a newspaper reporter and is covered stories ranging from politics to civil rights to higher education. in 1990 graduate of north carolina central university with a degree of english, look at us, both employed, very nice. ernie was also a harvard university nieman fellow pickiest early on the nieman board of trustees and he's a former vice president of the national association of black journalists, also please join me in welcoming ernie suggs, everybody. [applause] >> thank you all. we are probably going to spend most of her time talking about the subject of the book, global citizen andrew young. this is a beautiful book for those who haven't had the chance to see it yet. i want to start a conversation talking a bit about you, ernie and sorted how you got to be a chronicler of the ambassador. as i mentioned in your bio you arrived in atlanta about 25, 26 years ago at a time when a number of pantheon of civil rights leaders were still actively involved in the city. can you talk about what it's like for you as reported, as newspaper guy coming into town at that moment? >> i came to a medicament to let in 1987 the seven the year after the olympics. the paper didn't hire me during the olympics. i still have a beef with them on that. i came in 1997 and a look at it, i was talked about it is kind of like i walked into what i consider the second set of founding fathers was to living in atlanta. i moved to atlanta and john lewis was there, c. t. vivian was there. hosea williams was there, james on hornfischer whois data just passed away. i just found out just recently. coretta scott king was there, all the king children with her, and andrew young. i was her as a young reporter covering is give us remember vividly the first time i actually met coretta scott king, and it still, still like this i can't believe i met, i wish you city this close to her when we met. so i was able, my first job was covering, like nikon scope being unused paper reported, , my firt job was not cops but eventually came the race reporter or the urban affairs reporter. now covering civil rights of discovering all these people thought a bit about and watched document is about all my life and discovering them. i always say that people asked me, how did he get to write andrew young's book? i told i've been writing it for 25 years because i've always kind of known his lifetime i've always chronicled his life post-civil rights, host mayor. and, unfortunately, in 2000, unit, as a writer and as a trend i've always wanted to write a book every journalist wants to write a book. in 2020 we lost john lewis, c. t. vivian and joel lowery within three months of each other. john lewis, or c. t. vivian and joel lowery had been meant i approached previously said hey, let's sit down and write a book. let's consider writing a book. joel lowery wrote his own book. c. t. vivian was riding his last book when he died. so when they died i felt that, you know, andrew young was the logical step, the logical person for me to approach to write a book. his birthday was coming up. his birthday is march 12 this year. he turned 90. it was a perfect timing for me to write, to a found the subject to write about and for a subject who's willing to sit down and have story chronicled, and understand the importance of having his story chronicled as he was approaching 90 old. he talks about as we're touring the country, promoting the book and talk about the book that he wrote his book and easy burden in 1995, and that's about to become a thick biography. we've already stick biographies. he says that this book not because of her companies is that this book is better because it's an illustrated account of his life as well as the written word. so his grandchildren can pick it up, people can put it, literally it's a coffee-table book so you can put on your coffee table and read it, put it down, pick it up you know the next day or a week later pick up and read another chapter and it's something that's easily accessible and it tells his story in two ways. the written word and the original. >> adesso beautifully. i think that speaks to your credit as a journalist, as a man who's in the business of concise storytelling that it comes alive on the page, and these are very digestible ways. but as you say it is a highly visual book as well. as we're talking about minutes ago when i sought for the first time i thought this would be a great museum exhibit, and barely enough the only person to read that the because it exists in a format as well. would you make in that briefly? >> yeah, we have museum analytical the millennial gate museum, it's about 15 years old. a lot of people don't even realize it's a museum on 17th st. so for those of you watching from atlanta, and it's a beautiful exhibit. it's basically the pages of the book that event repurposed into a museum exhibit. so the three lower rooms on the first floor of the museum house the exhibit and also recruited andrew young's office. a lot of his personal artifacts either like his enemies, trophies and art. i think the most important thing is all the visuals, all the photographs that are on the wall, on the portrait on the wall that kind of recap, can he give you a cliff's of the book and get recaps his life. you can walk through his life. you mention the penn center in south carolina. we are moving the exhibit. the exhibit has been on display in atlanta since march but we're going to move it in november to the penn center in south carolina and then we will move it to north carolina, my home state. so i'm very proud of the whole fact we're able to come after his story forward to the south. >> the exhibit seems like to have multiple lives in the same way ambassador had multiple lives so that's a nice parallel. >> many live. >> thank you. appreciate that. let's build on that for a second because i'm curious how someone who's been covering the subject for 25 years would encapsulate it, would distill down what ultimate is the historical importance of andrew young, why does he deserve a book, an exhibit of this congress first, who is this man? >> i think when you look at the books title, "the many lives of andrew young" he has many lives. i approached him, i met him in 1995. i just recently graduated from college, and he came in town for a book tour, for a book signing in durham, north carolina, for an easy burn. by then had already been mayor of the land. an ornament the civil rights leader. he noted in an ambassador. in my introduction to them came in 1976, 1976-77 when i was a child, and jimmy carter was elected president and as a big fan of jimmy carter. he was like the first president that i knew. being a child of curiosity, and in the '70s when you're looking for role models come looking for black role models to the andrew young was a first lack u.n. ambassador to the united states wasn't something that was significant to me. i was introduced to him as the u.n. ambassador, not as a civil rights, i didn't realize he was a civil rights. until afterwards. so when you talk about the many loves of andrew young, if you look at the fact here's a man who grew up in segregated new orleans. he went about university, one of the premier colleges in the country. he doesn't like to say black colleges because of that to become a pastor of a small church in georgia. he left that to move to new york to do ministry work for an organization, then he moved to georgia 1960 to work with martin luther king jr. he left after the assassination to run for congress cos in the first class of black congressmen and women from the south since reconstruction. he left up to become a u.n. ambassador. he left that to become the mayor of atlanta. he left that while he was a bit when he the olympics to the united states, about the olympics to offend which is something no one could've ever foreseen. and now he runs a foundation. so we has these many lives and it looks, the one thing that's interesting about them is that it's almost as if every decade he kind of reinvents himself. he looks back but it doesn't really look back. if you pick out, if you pick a part of his life and the hat and you pick up mayor of atlanta, there's a whole book in that. that whole book in being a u.n. ambassador. i want in the book to distill all these different aspects of his life into one easily readable book. >> i think that's the challenge that you gave yourself and succeeded at so well he counts as you say there really is a book length study to be written on any of these positions that is held, and there are so many over the course of 90 years for a man of that h-2b as active as is the resuscitation, not just locally but internationally. he's out of the country today in fact, doing whatever is cawley has led him to do. i want to talk a little about how he interprets, how he prioritizes those elements when he's asked to do that. but in a couple of interviews about this book he keeps talking about his blessed life. .. time time again. and he tells a great story about how and why he came to to run for congress, that these weren't things that he necessarily thought he would be doing. but somebody needed to do it. and there he was. so would you talk a litt >> can you talk a little about that aspect. about the accidental aspect of it. >> the accidental life of andrew young, it's part of him being humble as well. toward of end of martin luther king's life, he was a key lieutenant for him, i'm not sure how far we are from memphis, but when dr. king was killed. and one of the things that dr. king talked about in his life now we're going to move the movement forward and one was to do politics. for black leaders to emerge to run for offices, whether they're running for mayor, in the 1960's. we saw the first generation of black mayors in major cities like cleveland and later in atlanta, places like that, but also to run for congress. to run for higher offices, statewide offices and national offices so that was a kind of next logical step. after martin luther king died and everybody was kind of looking for their own path to go, a lot of people suggested, hey, andy, why don't you run for congress? he had to be convinced by people like harry belafonte and lena horne and people in the civil rights movement helping out, but they saw, hey, we need to move forward and by moving forward we can establish ourselves in a different way. we can be a different kind of leader. and you know, andy was like maybe julian bond should run. we were talking about atlanta, talking georgia. maybe julian bond should run or someone else should run, no, we want you to run. when you talk about the accidental aspects of his life is that he did not necessarily want to run for congress. he did not necessarily want to run for mayor of atlanta. he was, you know, there's a great story in the book about this old black woman who basically cursed him out because she said, you know, you came here in atlanta in 1960 -- 1961, you were nothing, we made you who you are and we sent to you congress, and now we want you to run for mayor and you're acting like you don't want to do it. so she kind of shamed him into running for mayor and he became the mayor. >> and the response to her, martin luther king, jr. made me, and she said, yeah, we made him, too. atlanta has a strong powerful black community, too. they made me, too, so-- >> i want to veer off topic just for a second because you mentioned something in the ambassador's past that i think kind of parallels things that are happening right now or don't. you as a writer of contemporary atlanta may be able to speak to this. did you see that same thing happening in the black lives movement where the next logical step is to take positions of power, to run for office, to go from being a protesters, an activist, to being a leader in a legislative or civil position? >> i do think it's -- i do think it's an ever evolving position that we're in is african-americans. we're still continuing to kind of find our way and we're still continuing to kind of put out progressive or you shouldn't i say progressive because that's become a political term -- to put out strong people in office. rafael warnock and stacey abrams and for fairness, hershel walker. so we do have-- we're seeing a spate of really great young politicians who came out of black colleges, stacey and raphael came out of black colleges, spelman and morehouse, and cory bush in missouri and we're seeing-- and she is an an example who came out of the black lives matter movement. lucy mcbath came out of the black lives matter movement in the sense this her son was killed, her son jordan davis was killed and she took that as a baton to run for office and we're seeing people taking different paths, but i think they're still built on the foundation set in the 1960's, if we're going to make a difference in our country, in our lives and communities, that we have to be a representative voice at the table and if you're not a representative voice at the table, then nothing is going to change or with the changes that are going to be made are not going to have an impact on you positivelily. so-- >> so that's what leads andrew young into congress, a sort of similar movement that maybe we're experiencing again now, but let's talk about what has come out of congress, as well, his relationship with president carter and his work as a united nations ambassador. what was his relationship with carter like? >> it was -- it's a really great relationship now. i was at president carter's 75th wedding anniversary last year and andrew young was one of the honored guests and their relationship while andrew young was in the united nations was good as well. but one of the things about andrew young, and i've talked about it in the book and on tour is that andrew young isn't afraid to say what he wants to say and do what he wants to do. sometimes that can get you in trouble. one of the great stories and i don't have that in the book and one of my favorite tv shows growing up was good times and i remember every line of every show and this was 1974. and they were talking about something and michael, who is the young militant in the family is like, i'm going to speak my mind just like andrew young speaks his mind and there was a random andrew young in 1974 talking how he speaks his mind and andrew young as a united nations ambassador spoke his mind. he got a lot done, but he also did things unconventionally and speak to leaders in countries that i wouldn't say president carter didn't want him to talk to, but president carter's people didn't necessarily want him talking to or he was overstepping his bounds in certain ways. so, you know, technically he got fired from the u.n., from-- president carter wasn't reelected so he wasn't going to enter a second term as u.n. ambassador, but he got basically fired so that was a blow to him, but, you know, again, he's a person who is able to kind of reinvent himself and kind of rebound and you know, he came back to atlanta and broke, didn't have any money and his daughter's about to go to college so he had to kind of reinvent himself, go into business or travel? he's always kind of able for land and land very well. >> he's very candid about that moment in the book, too. i remember that story very specifically where he's considering, you know, what the mayor's salary is and that's not going to pay to send kids to college and yet, somebody needs to do this and now he's back in atlanta, but that's probably the part of the story that is most interesting to me because that's where, if you don't know the full context of the man's life, the career trajectory doesn't make sense from having an internationally important position to being mayor of a town, but in that point was really in a difficult spot. >> but also, i didn't mean to cut you off. but everything kind of builds upon itself. his international -- the things he learned as a u.n. ambassador directly impacted how he ran the city of atlanta. you know, the contacts he made. the fact that he saw atlanta-- he moved to atlanta in 1960 and 61 and he tells a great story and i hope i don't ramble on. the first time-- some of my dates are kind of messed up, but game in 1948 and went to the ymca auburn avenue, and if you've been to atlanta, auburn avenue once call the richest negro street in the world and the ymca, a black ymca. he came there to stay ott y this. -- at ymca and the klan marched down auburn avenue, the richest black street in the world as a show of intimidation and he comes back later on driving through atlanta probably in the mid 1950's. he's driving through atlanta and he sees a rat down ponz delee moan-- ponce de leon street, and he doesn't want to hit the rat because they have more power. and he ran for congress and then mayor in the city within 20 years remarkable in and of itself and the fact that he saw something in atlanta that he knew it could be an international city. he knew it could be a city that wasn't, you know, birmingham. it wasn't little rock. not even, you know, nashville, that there was something different about atlanta with the airport, with the businesses that were there, with what this standard, they called the atlanta way, how blacks and whites have kind of come to an agreement that because of business relationships and because of what's going on with higher education and the schools there, that we can work together if we kind of put our minds to it. he saw that. and the fact that he was able to bring the olympics to atlanta, you know, 30 years after he moved to atlanta and was scared to run over a rat, says something about what he was able to pick up. how he was able to kind of use those skills that he learned as a u.n. ambassador to kind of woo different countries and woo votes to come to atlanta for the olympics and to kind of bring money in. now, atlanta has the busiest airport in the world. atlanta has, you know, several fortune 500 countries right in atlanta. the biggest building in atlanta when he moved here, you can't even see it now because there's so much it's grown. and you know, i talked to his daughter. she said when they'd drive around the city he has a big smile on his face because a lot of that is what he's able-- a lot of what we see now is what he was able to plant, the seeds he was able to plant. >> it's a remarkable legacy and it takes someone with a global vision to do it as well as he did and as quickly as he did, too. when i've seen you do interviews together, he talks about that of the many lives of andrew young, that seems to be the one he wants to focus on, that he feels closest to his own sense of who he is as a human being. but i'm really curious, for a little deeper dive into the olympics story as well. because he so often points to that as sort of the quintessential andrew young success story for those sort of unfamiliar with the concept and the history of this. very rarely do cities make money when they host the olympics, they sort of do this for the goodwill, but he did this in the opposite, did it for atlanta long-term not just during the event itself. >> so when he was approached and i didn't touch on-- when he was approached about the possibility of atlanta hosting the olympics, the first female mayor of atlanta, several years later, was a chief of staff and a brilliant woman. she said it's a crazy idea and we're going to go broke. if you think about it 1996 limit olympics, by the time the pitch was made mid 1980's, montreal in 1976, you think about other major cities that held the olympics, they were all broke. the olympics basically left them broke. the only olympics that made money of recent note was los angeles in 1984. so, he kind of took-- he kind of took advice from mayor bradley in los angeles as to how a city can host a limit picks and make money. and not necessarily make money because it wasn't-- you know, he didn't see it as a moneymaker venture, but not lose money which is very important because the olympics coming to montreal is a perfect example. they come to town and build the buildings and the olympics are gone and they're left with white elephants. and basically he talked about wall street paid for the olympics and wall street paid for the atlanta's airport because he was able to leverage and convince businesses to convince foreign countries to kind of invest in atlanta to build stadiums and to redo roads and to expand the airport. all of this stuff is-- taxpayers paid no money for the olympics nor the airport in atlanta and that's his lasting legacy as he sees it. that's what-- like you said that's what he's proud of, atlanta didn't go broke and we hosted the centennial olympics and got value to it until this day. >> the olympics stadium, i remember being there with the opening ceremonies. after that, atlanta braves moved there, moved to cobb county and now it's reinvented as a football deem team for georgia state and a major university and public policy and you see his name right above at the downtown campus, but you see his name on the building and 25 stories up. now, the andrew young school of public policy so it kind of reinvents itself and kind of like full circle. >> i wonder what it's like for him? have you talked to him about what it's like to drive around atlanta and see his name all over everything? to see, i think, two statues as well? >> andrew young is a very interesting person, very humble and he's very, i guess when you reach 90, things don't impact you as much as they-- you know, i see myself on tv, and calling everybody else and now that this is on live tv. but i think there are seven things in atlanta named after him. like you said, two statues, there's a school. his wife, there's a school named for his former wife. there's a street andrew young street. and he just kind of like, those kind of things, i think, he just takes it, you know, he's like appreciative of it, of course, but he's like, you know, it's not that big of a deal. i think he's more impressed or more excited just about how the city is, and just how the city has grown up, and what the city is and how he's contributed to that. >> you mentioned his wife and that sort of prompts me to go in a direction and i want today make sure that we covered as well. there are quite a lot of stories in here about his family, about his two marriages, about his parents, his grandparents as well. how does he make sense of the importance of family, multi-generational family and who he is and his story? how do you make sense of that as his chronicler? >> and i think it's important. if you talk to andrew young now, he's always talking about his kids, about his grandchildren, having arguments with his grandchildren about how they live their life. not in a bad way, but how you argue with grandchildren and he always talks about how whenever he's arguing with them, they'll pull out their phone and ask siri and siri-- he's often wrong because, you know, but he lives his life now at the service of his wife, children and grandchildren because when he was a child he lived with his-- he lived with his parents, but his grandmother lived there, elderly grandmother and his brother. so he was-- he's always been a part of a strong family network. he married young. one thing about his grandmother and again, this is kind after connection to family, is that his grandmother raised-- his grandmother gave birth to five children and raised six more, so she raised all of these children and in the black community, it's not uncommon for people to raise other people's children. his grandmother was one of those people and he talks about how, as she got older, she went blind and how he would read to her every day, he'd read the bible, the newspaper every day, so, he was able to kind of draw closer to her grandmother in a whole different level, because she was so dependent on him and he was dependent on what she was teaching him and he carried that throughout his life. he married-- he met, you know, got a job. he got one of his first jobs preaching in a small church, kind after intern preaching job and stayed with a family in alabama and this family's daughter was away in school and he saw the photographs of her and thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world and said i'm going to marry her and she comes home for the summer and they meet and he marries her six months later. and he stayed with her for 40 years, and you know, they built a family and she passed away in 1994, i believe. and he remarried-- he remarried, he's been married 40 years and 25 years and married pretty much all of his life because he sees the importance of family and understands the importance of family. his daughter, who is the-- andrea, head of the georgia a.c.l.u., plays a significant role in his life and as well as carrying on his legacy of public service. you know, she's -- and all of his children do that. it's his great legacy he's built and family is the heart of all of it. >> what was interesting to me, about-- well, i'll focus on the first half of the question, about his early life, two things, one that it's so well-documented not that there are a handful of photos, but beautiful photos, actually, professional photographs in some cases of his childhood and his youth, but also, that you know, this is not the vision that his father initially had for him. he had a particular profession in mind. would you talk about that and his relationship with his father and parents? >> let me talk about photos if you don't mind. >> sure. >> one of the great things about-- one of the fortunate things in doing this book, his wife is so well-documented, he's 90 years old. both of his parents were college educated they weren't rich, but they had a little money and the fact that, if you look at the book, you have photographs of him as a baby, studio photographs of a little black child as a baby you don't see much of in 1920's and 30's of professional photographs taken of black children because we just didn't have the means of doing that. so, the fact that his life was so well-documented and so well-documented basically from the time he was born up until now with all of his different jobs that he's had, that made it easier for us to kind of chronicle his life in the book. the second part about the-- the second part of your question about his relationship with his father, he had a good relationship with his father in general and his father also lived a nice long life as well and so they had a great relationship. however, as i mentioned before, his father was a college man, his father was a dentist and i think all of us, you know, and i think a lot of times, particularly in the black community, if you're successful and you have children, you want your children to succeed you and do better, and i think this is every family, but especially in a black community in the 1930's and 40's, you want your child to be better than you. so when you have a black dentist in new orleans who's treating, you know, he's treating celebrities like joe louis and louis armstrong and a dentistry he treated poor people for free and he wanted his son to follow in his footsteps, and he wanted him to follow him. he went to howard university with the intention of pleasing his father by being a dentist. he gets to howard university and this is probably the first time and one of the only times in which andrew young did not do well. he didn't do well in college. although he graduated in four years he was not a great student. he was on the track team, he was on the swimming team. he pledged to a fraternity, my fraternity. i don't know what's going on with him. but he didn't do well in college. so the reason he didn't do well is because his life or his heart wasn't devoted into becoming a dentist. he didn't know what he wanted to do he wanted to something different he thought maybe a teacher. he obviously thought he was going to be an olympian and he thought about being a pastor, but pastors don't make any money. his father was like, you're going to be a dentist. he barely graduated, four years of howard university and his parents drove up to bring him back to new orleans and they couldn't find a hotel anywhere between there. they stopped in a religious campus in kingstown, north carolina, which is my home state. and spent the night at the religious resort and he's an athlete so he runs up king's mountain one morning to kind of clear his head and according to the story he runs up the mountain and he passes out or something happens to him. when he wakes up and you know, these are the kind of stories you read in shakespeare or mythology and wakes up and the whole world is different. he sees everything different. how the leaves are greener and the sky is bluer and the grass is greener and he sees the cows, if god made all of this, he made all of these vivid colors and complex things and complex creatures, then there's a purpose for me. he so he wakes up and runs down the hill and at that particular moment says i'm going to be a pastor. he tells his father, his father is upset going back to his father's story and his father, as much as the great relationship that he had with his father, his father refused to pay for him to go to graduate school to become-- he goes to hartford seminary in hartford, connecticut. and his father refuses to pay for that. and he works in all of these jobs and his father refuses to pay for it because his father wanted him to be a dentist. >> that's a significant part of his life he's not only defying his father, but charting his course for the first time. i'm going the way that i want to go and the way i'm led to go and his father didn't pay for his college, but they were fine. it's not like i hate you or-- it wasn't an estrangement. >> at what point do they reconnect? not that they're disconnected, but what point does his father say maybe i was wrong about the dentist thing. >> you know, he never did. his father never -- his father never -- you know, this is a guy again, he became a congressman and a mayor, while his father was alive, but his father always felt he should have been a dentist. he has a younger brother named walter who followed his father into practice. i don't know how old walter is i think he may be 87, but he has a practice in atlanta, and his father never forgave him for doing that. >> that's fascinating. the king's mountain story as you alluded to, sort of the heroes quest, sort of super heroes call to adventure and to be so committed to it that he's going to dedicate himself and figure out how to do it and pay his own way into his life is remarkable. >> and again, he wasn't a great student at howard, but he goes to heartford and becomes a-plus student, you know, he gets all of these opportunities to go and, you know, churches all over the south who want them to come and organizations, religious organizations want him to come and work there so he really goes there and thrives and becomes in totally different kind of student. >> we were talking a little bit in the green room about his sense of faith and that's a word you introduced, but i think it's one that i think about a lot, too, as i was reading about, not just the spiritual phase, but the humanistic phase as well and that seems to be informing the work that he's doing right now. as a 90-year-old man he doesn't necessarily have to do anything that he wants to do and yet, he's trying to put goodness into the world and trying to save the world through a different set of tools and resources, but it's sort of the culmination of all the connections and workings done until this point as well. can you tell us a little about what his foundation does? >> sure, we were at an event a couple of weeks ago, the harvard black alumni association and one of the students asked, you know, at 90 years old, with all the stuff you've done, why are you here? why aren't you just, your feet up at a beach somewhere? i think his feet are up at a beach right now. he said because he still has work to do. you know, he still feels that there's work to go done to make this country and this world a better place and i think with the andrew young foundation, his foundation, nonprofit, he's working on ways in which to -- he wants to figure out a way to feed, you know, six billion people on earth and finding alternative sources of food, finding alternative sources of income. doing things with the mississippi river, you know, he grew up in new orleans, kind of on the mississippi river, trying to find different ways in which the river can be used to feed people and sustain people. so, with his foundation, he's kind of moved onto another phase of his life to kind of like, okay, i'm going to-- not necessarily sit back and relax, but you know, use his foundation for good. and use his foundation to heal people. use his foundation to get everything that i've learned in all of these worlds and all of these different lives to put it all in here to kind of make the world better. so the kind of-- everything that he's been given, he wants to now give back. so, is this a philanthropic organization, it's a charitable organization. you know, he's done work in africa, done work in the middle east, done work in the caribbean and done work in atlanta, you know, kind of like looking for ways in which to share-- to spend the money that he's gotten or to spend the money that he's raised to kind of feed people. soho -- so, hosea williams, and he has hosea feeds the hungry, thanksgiving and christmas dinner in atlanta. and andrew young says i'm doing the same thing, but on a-- not in a bad way, but he's kind of doing the same, he's feeding the hungry as well, but thinking different ways to be done. >> sort of different vision how to enact it, but both amazing models of servant leadership, how to put yourself in there and use the resources that you have for the good of others. >> yeah. >> before we open this up to audience questions, that's your five minute warning, gang and please remember to come up to the microphone there to help us all out. i'm really curious about how -- what he would say would be the great lesson of his life? so often we read biographies or autobiographies because of fascinating people and we're looking for ways to live a life and live a life of purpose for 90 years is remarkable. what advice would he give if he were mere to give it, do you think? >> that's a great question. i mean, i think it would be just to kind of live your life and he and i are on a kind of a book tour right now and you know, we've run all over the country and we'll continue to go all over the country talking about the book, but he has kind of taught me, not necessarily told me, but kind of showed me through his words and actions about how i can be better and how i can do things differently. but i think that if you were to ask him that question, it would be to just follow your life's journey, follow what you want to do and also, not to be afraid of taking a risk. not to be afraid of listening to other people, like you said, he didn't want to be a congressman, nor did he want to be the mayor of atlanta. he had to be convinced of that. he had to take that risk, take that challenge. so i think it's kind ever following your heart and take the challenge and sacrifice yourself and to be willing to fail. i asked him, you know, i think i've asked him a couple of times on the tour, has he ever failed? and he said, i can't remember a time that i've failed and this is a person who has done everything. who has-- who's always took risks and you know, sure, he's probably lost money in investment or something before or whatever, but you know, he's always been able to take risks and do things and if it doesn't work out, he's also the next thing. or if it does work out, after, you know, he's gotten bored with it, he'll move on to something else. this guy has-- i go to his house and of course he has the olympic torch and this kind of stuff, but he has emmys all over his house. just sitting there, just like, oh, i won this emmy for that or whatever. but he is such an amazing, diverse renaissance person that he's done everything. just like so amazing. >> yeah, he does seem to be what we would think of as a lifelong lerner, too, keeps putting himself into new positions where he doesn't necessarily know how to do it, buts' going to figure out how to do it and surround himself with people who will support him and teach him, too, and seems like someone who has been seeking out mentors and why he's become that way for you, and that's the way that cycle works, also. >> so i want to ask perhaps one more question before we'll happily take yours, if anybody wants-- if anybody is brave enough to approach the microphone. if not, i'll have a couple more that i can throw in for the good of the order as well. you mentioned being on tour with him and i'm curious over the course of working on the book and on a relatively quick turn-around time i gathered and going out and having public conversations and private conversations with him. is there anything that you've learned about him that's brand new information to you that is shocking or something? >> that's a great question. i think that the one thing that was i was very shocked about which i mentioned was the kings mountain story and i thought it was a fascinating thing, but in terms of being on tour with him and knowing him and getting to hang out with him, and calling it just hanging out, is that he's taught me a lot. you know, and just kind of listening to his story and a lot of the stories i know where he's going with them and i know exactly how he's going to phrase it because i've been with him so long and listening to the stories and kind of understanding him and him teaching me, there's two quick things i'll mention. >> please. >> he and i went to washington d.c. and we fly into washington d.c., and we're getting ready to go find the car and we're there for one day that we're going to go and speak and come back the next day. i take a suitcase with a suit, three pair of shoes and all of this stuff, and i said, you know, well, we're going to meet the car and i'm going to get our cars from baggage claim. >> and we're speaking tonight, where are your clothes? >> he said i have my underwear in here, the toothbrush in here and that's all i need and that said so much to me about how i was-- i had paul of this -- all of this stuff for a one-day event and he had a little bag and that goes marching from selma to montgomery. when you're marching all you needed was a bag and apple and sandwich, that's you will you needed and you know, that right there, this guy who has, you know, he knew nelson mandella, every president since lyndon johnson and he is still going around the country with a bag, with a toothbrush in it, which is amazing. and that just says, you know, that kind of changes my priorities as well. and the second story, oh, the second-- i almost forgot. the first time we had an event at the carter center and i had all of this stuff written down. and i, you know, he said why do you have all of this stuff written down, let's just talk and have a conversation. and he learned that when he was a pastor in the 1950's in georgia. and he said that if you're going to read your sermon, then the people aren't going to trust you. then they're not-- your congregation is not going to trust you, it has to come from your mind. he never reads from paper and i've been trying to do that and it's kind of hard. and you know, every day he's kind of teaching me different things and he's not necessarily like sit down and i'm going to teach you something, but he's telling me things that i'm kind of picking up and becoming better myself, so-- >> a great model, sort of modeling things for you, that is fascinating, still the core of who he is and formed in his young life and still later. >> yeah. >> i don't do exactly what you do, but i do something quite similar, i'm director at pat conroy literary senior and conroy protege from pat as you're describing at any given it time i have 12 hours of conroy on a loop in my head and none of that replaces times like you're experiencing with andy young, i envy you that. >> that's been a blessing. >> but those two figures actually overlap and you mentioned penn center earlier so i want to mention this and perhaps this will be our closing question in the absence of an audience question, don't be afraid of the microphone, you all, right there. penn is where the touring exhibit from the book, "many lives of andrew young" is headed yet. if you haven't seen the book yet, it's highly visual. i'm excite today see the exhibit. the reason it's going to penn center. and julian bond was there and jesse jackson and civil rights in the 1960's and that's the country where blacks and whites could safely gather together and it's a haven, i think is probably the best word of activity, during the civil rights movement and at that time pat conroy was a high school student at buford and his teacher was progressive ally and advocate of a teacher jean norris understood the importance of that and wanted pat to see it and experience it firsthand. so 16-year-old pat conroy met andrew young whatever age he would and dr. king and a street that's now named for dr. king. and all of those folks transformative for him. what was that like for andrew young? have you talked to him about his penn center experiences? >> i think i have. all of his experiences have been like little pillars in terms of filling out his life. st. augustine is a pillar that a lot of people don't know about and he was in selma. but, you know, being in south carolina, being around martin luther king, jr. and the civil rights leaders, who were his mentors. >> yeah. >> all helped kind of create who he is now and the penn center, we're going to move our museum exhibit from atlanta to the penn center and that's the reason. because it meant so much to him. and that experience meant so much to him. >> yeah. >> we do have an audience question. do we have time for a very quick question? >> two questions, one is, you were saying that many strong leaders come out of the historically black colleges and university. have any strong black leaders come out of white universities. >> oh, yeah. >> and the second question is, i'd like to know what the role andy young had in the civil rights movement. what could he do that martin luther king couldn't do that made a major contribution of success to the movement. >> in terms of. before i got here i visited fitz university, the hbcu here in nashville. but, yeah, barack obama came out of columbia, wb deboise the first black person to get a ph.d. out of harvard. >> after he went to fitz, of course. >> of course, yeah, that's what i said. but, yeah, so, historically black colleges as well as predominantly white colleges have been educating black people for years. i mention historic black colleges because close to 100 years that's the only place we could have gone to college. and that's where i went to undergrad at a historically black college. and that's why it's important i went to this college. and your second question, what was that? >> the role in the civil rights movement, what did he do that martin luther king couldn't do. >> well, i mean, he carried on martin luther king's legacy in a different way. as i mentioned he was able to go into politics and run for mayor of atlanta, run for mayor of martin luther king's birth city and same thing with jesse jackson and julian bond. all of these things who were proteges of martin luther king, jr. actually continue to carry his legacy in politics or philanthropy or civic duties. you know, john lewis, for example, john lewis was another nashville student and went on to be a congressman for 33 years and john lewis talks specifically about the fact that martin luther king, jr. brought him from nashville to atlanta on a bus trip because john lewis was having trouble in school and then martin luther king invited him to atlanta. so, in 1963 john lewis was the youngest person to speak at the march on washington and 10 years later he's in congress. so, these are kind of things that kind of that legacy that carries on. martin luther king died at the age of 39 and lived a relatively young life, but his legacy and the person that worked with him and followed him continues now until this day and continues through andy young. as i mentioned, and james orange's daughter just passed away today. so that's kind of another pillar in that whole king legacy that continues to go. >> yeah. >> and ending on that note on the note of legacy, maybe, a good moment to conclude our conversation with ernie suggs. so everybody, join me in thanking ernie for joining me today. [applause] >> and once again, we've been talking about the many lives of andrew young, which ernie will now be signing over on the plaza. thank you all for joining us at the southern festival of books. thank you, ernie. >> thank you. well done, sir. >> good. >> if you're enjoying book tv then sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen. to receive the sell of upcoming programs, author discussions, and books and more. book tv every sunday on c-span2 or online book tv.org. television for serious readers. >> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday, american tv documents america's story and on sunday's book tv brings you the latest nonfiction books and authors. and funding comes from these television companies and more including cox. >> homework can be hard, but squatting in a diner for internet work is even harder. that's why we're providing lower income students access to affordable internet. so homework can just be homework. cox, connect to compete. >> cox, along with these television companies support c-span2 as a public service. >> judge thomas, do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing, but the whole truth, so help you god? >> i do. >> please