(uplifting music) (uplifting music continues) - Hello, I'm Jeff Hullinger at the Atlanta History Center.

Georgia was the epicenter of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, led by Dr. King.

At his side throughout this tumultuous and historic period was his close friend and confidant Andrew Young.

Young would eventually embark on a political career that would see him become a congressman, the U.S.

Ambassador to the United Nations, the 55th Mayor of Atlanta, and a driving force behind Atlanta landing the Centennial Olympics in 1996.

Throughout all of it, he has continually inspired generations of Americans to simply do and be better.

Donna Lowry has his remarkable story.

(church congregation cheers) - [Donna] For Andrew Young, Southern Christian roots would guide a remarkable journey.

From the heart of the segregated South through the grit of the Civil Rights Movement.

Enduring the struggles of political office on the local, state, and international stages.

To respected icon as a global diplomat.

Along the way, experiencing intense hatred and violence and the grief of losing a friend, mentor, and leader to an assassin's bullet.

But always carrying on, with the spirit and values forged in a movement, to find his own activist path to help improve the lives of people around the world.

On March 12th, 1932, Andrew Jackson Young, Jr. was born in the segregated city of New Orleans.

Andrew, Sr. was a prominent dentist and his mother, Daisy, a teacher.

- New Orleans was a very interesting city because, while it was officially segregated, neighborhoods were not segregated.

So I lived in a neighborhood where, while there were other Black families, there were no Black children but my brother and me.

And so there was an Irish grocery store on the corner, an Italian bar, and the headquarters of the Nazi party was on the third corner.

On, Saturdays, they would be in their brown shirts and swastikas, and they'd be heiling Hitler.

- [Announcer] Streak down the red cinder path in the 100-meter dash.

- [Donna] In 1936, his father took Andrew to a movie theater to watch Jesse Owens in the Olympic Games.

When Owens won his first gold medal, Hitler refused to congratulate him.

Andrew's father gave him his first lesson in dealing with bigotry and hate that day.

- He said that Nazism is a sickness.

In fact, white supremacy is a sickness.

And you don't get upset with sick people.

You have to find a way to help 'em.

If you get angry and emotional about it, you're in danger of catching the sickness.

- [Donna] It was advice he would adhere to for the rest of his life.

As a teenager, his father wanted Andrew to follow him into the family dentistry business, but that didn't hold much appeal.

- The dentist is in one office, and I'm much too restless for that.

So I went to Dillard University for a year.

Then I went to Howard University.

- [Donna] After finishing at Howard University, Young felt a spiritual calling.

He told his father he wanted to preach and eventually received a scholarship to Hartford Theological Seminary in Connecticut where he earned a divinity degree and so much more.

- It also trained most of the missionaries, of all of the Protestant denominations and some Catholic, that were going all over the world.

I learned my foreign policy education, not from books written by Europeans, but by missionaries who lived with the people and who spoke the language.

- [Donna] When he returned South, he met his future wife, Jean Childs, in Marion, Alabama.

When he first saw her, she was milking a cow.

- Barefoot in some cutoff blue jeans and her hair uncombed, and it was the most beautiful sight I'd ever seen.

And I did the most stupid thing.

I went back to my car to get my camera 'cause I wanted to preserve that moment.

And she got up and she said, "If my mother didn't need to make butter with this milk, "I'd pour it all in your ugly face."

- [Donna] They married in 1954, and in '55 he accepted his first teaching job as pastor of Bethany Congressional Church in Thomasville, Georgia.

- I got involved in voter registration in Thomasville, that was 1956, because Maynard Jackson's grandfather asked me to run a voter registration drive.

- [Donna] Before the first event, while returning home from a nearby town, Andrew ran into a terrifying gathering.

- We came around the corner, and there was, seemed like a hundred people with sheets and pointed hats.

And I'd never seen the Klan before.

- [Donna] He first considered talking to the group and asked his wife to sit in the window with a rifle as backup.

- She said, "No, I can't point a gun at a human being."

I said, "But, babe, that's the Ku Klux Klan."

And she said, "And you're supposed to be a preacher."

I said, "What's that got to do with it?"

She said, "If you ever forget "that under that sheet is the heart of a child of God, "you need to quit preaching."

- [Donna] So he came up with another plan, called the Mayor, who called some of the local business leaders.

- They called the sheriff and told the sheriff that the Klan could meet on the courthouse steps, but they should not be allowed to parade through the Black community or to harass Black citizens at all.

And I learned then that the business community in almost every city wants to keep things peaceful and that they are the key to good race relations in most places.

- [Donna] Engaging business leaders became a critical strategy as he went forward in life.

He and Jean next went to New York where he worked for the National Council of Churches.

- Because they were working with young white people across the South who were not ready for integration.

And they hired me.

- [Donna] Four years later, Martin Luther King, Jr., whom he'd met years earlier in Alabama, asked him to do work for the SCLC, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

- We trained people from Virginia all the way around to Texas trying to locate those leaders, teach them to solve problems in their communities without violence, and also to teach their neighbors how to pass their voter registration tests and become registered voters.

- [Donna] Everyone who worked with King had a specific role.

One of Young's was the diplomat of the movement.

- And I think my father looked to him that way because he had come from the National Council of Churches.

And as a result of that role, he was able to meet a lot of people, interface particularly with the white community, - [Donna] A bridge that helped Dr. King connect to the thoughts and attitudes of those who were outside of the movement.

- He's there when Dr. King goes and meets with John Kennedy.

He's there when he meets with Lyndon Johnson.

- There was synergy between what he did inside and what people were doing in the streets.

- [Donna] Young provided balance, viewpoints different from the others, important especially given the dangers they all faced.

Dangers they often talked about, including their own deaths.

- All the time.

Martin said, "Look, I'm not afraid to die."

He said, "But I don't want to die for nothing."

- [Donna] They had fun too.

In 1968, while in Memphis for the sanitation worker's strike, Young had spent the day in court for the movement and couldn't call.

King had worried.

When he returned, Young tried to explain.

- I'd been gone in court all day long, and they were just really happy.

He said, "Well, where have you been?"

I said, "I've been in court."

"Why didn't you call me?"

I said, "Well..." No cell phones.

I said, "I was on the witness stand."

"You should have found a way to write a note."

I said, "Wait a minute.

"I'm trying to keep you out of jail.

"But if I'm here worrying about it."

And, finally, he picked up a pillow and threw it at me, and I threw it back.

And then everybody picked up pillows and started beating me up.

Which was typical 15-year-old behavior.

- [Donna] It would be the last time the two would share such a lighthearted moment.

The next day, April 4th, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel, Young was in the parking lot when King came out of a second floor room to the balcony.

(gun fires) - It was almost like he was raising his head to see, you know, testing the weather, decide whether he wanted a coat or not.

And I thought a firecracker went off.

And I looked up and I didn't see him.

And, my first, he'd been so playful.

I thought he was clowning.

And really it didn't occur to me that he'd been shot until I ran up the steps to see.

And I saw him laying there in a pool of blood.

(plaintive piano music) I was mad at him for going to Heaven and leaving us in Hell.

And my first reaction was, "Damn, we were just making it with you.

"How are we gonna make it without you?"

I always kind of hoped we'd all get killed together somewhat.

- He talked about it continuously.

It's survivor's guilt that he was able to live so many years after.

Over and over again.

- [Donna] Young, John Lewis, Jesse Jackson, and others took their grief and continued the fight in different ways.

- They didn't abandon nonviolence.

I mean, even after they had seen their ultimate hero shot, they continued with their nonviolence all the way on through.

- [Donna] Young also helped King's family cope with the loss.

- He was the only one in my father's inner circle who stayed close and connected to our family and was there beyond the public moments.

- [Donna] He continued that connection by helping Coretta Scott King fulfill her vision for the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change.

In 1972, Andrew Young ran for Congress but lost.

In 1974, he ran again and succeeded to become the first Black to serve in Congress from Georgia since Reconstruction.

During his second term, Young stumped for a fellow Georgian.

- His support was beyond vital for the election of Jimmy Carter as president.

He then leaves being a congressman to take the philosophy of Jimmy Carter to the world.

- [Donna] Once in office, President Carter asked Young to serve as U.S.

Ambassador to the United Nations, becoming the first African American in that role.

- I was kind of reluctant 'cause I didn't know what he wanted to do at the United Nations.

And he gave me a little note, "I want you to go to Africa..." No, "I want you to ask as many world leaders as possible "what they expect of this administration "and how we might help them."

- [Donna] Young grounded his U.S. policy approach in human rights issues.

But, in 1979, he resigned following a controversial meeting with a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

- He was very bold in his reaching out to the Palestinians during the time that he was United Nations ambassador and caught unshirted hell for it.

But he felt that we had to move beyond just our close, close ties with our allies, the Israelis, but that we really needed to, if we're ever going to have peace in that area, we've got to have relations with both the Palestinians and the Israelis.

- [Donna] Despite that, his old boss awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981.

Two years later, the admittedly reluctant politician felt compelled to run for mayor.

- I didn't wanna be mayor 'cause my children were, I had one daughter in law school, one in engineering school, one just starting college.

And the mayor's salary was $50,000 a year.

But there was a nice little old lady by the name of Miss Susie LaBord from Southeast Atlanta, and she shook her walking stick in my face, and she said, "Look here, boy.

"When you came here, you wasn't nothing."

And said, "We made something out of you."

I said, "Yes, ma'am, that's right."

She said, "Now that we need you to run for mayor, "you ain't got time for us?

"We done wasted our time on you."

- [Donna] During the campaign, he drew on his experience uniting people.

- He forged ties with the conservative business community so that Atlanta, really during his time in office...

I mean, the best example, that's Charlie Loudermilk, who was a very, very strong Republican.

- [Donna] Young and Loudermilk reflected on their relationship in an Atlanta Press Club video.

- I didn't wanna run in a Black against white contest.

So I said, "I need one strong, "well-respected white businessman "to be with me in case I win."

- And I said, "Well, you know, Andy, "if you are sincere in that, I'll support you."

People have asked me, how does a white conservative Republican have a close relationship with a Black liberal Democrat?

And I just said that's just the way we do it in Atlanta.

- [Donna] It's just one example of public-private partnerships Andrew Young crystallized that helped shape Atlanta.

In 1990, after a failed attempt to win the governor's office, he formed a new alliance, one that would help put Atlanta on the world map.

- A fellow by the name of Billy Payne from the University of Georgia, former football player and a lawyer, came to visit me and said, "What do you think about "bringing the Olympics to Atlanta?"

And I had always been in love with the Olympics.

So we started working together.

- [Donna] He and Payne would eventually bring the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games to his city.

- We sure turned Atlanta into a truly international city.

- [Donna] The Olympics stretched his global influence.

But he still made an impact on those closer to him.

- I met Ambassador Young very early in my life.

I was just a boy, and I was probably three or four years old.

- [Donna] Young worked as vice chairman of Kabir Sehgal's father's global engineering firm, one of the largest in the United States.

- [Donna] He ended up being the soul of the company.

He would travel with my father to different offices, South Africa, Zimbabwe.

And they would give motivational talks, and they would say that you're not just building dams and roads.

You're helping civilizations become functional and bringing clean water to poor people.

- [Donna] Young mentored Kabir from a young age, and the pair wrote a book together about Young's time in the civil rights movement.

Through it all, Andrew and Jean raised three girls and a boy.

Jean passed away in 1994 of cancer.

In 1996, he married Carolyn McClain.

Out of office, Andrew Young kept a nonstop pace, lecturing, serving on countless boards, receiving dozens of honorary degrees, and creating programs that benefit Atlanta's communities.

- Cares, he cares deeply about his fellow man.

I saw him as we worked together on so many different causes.

- [Donna] He created the Andrew J.

Young Foundation to support educational opportunity and promote alleviating hunger and poverty globally, always working to engage future generations.

- I wanna welcome you to the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies here at Georgia State University.

- [Donna] It houses the schools of criminal justice, economics, social work, public management and policy, and the Urban Studies Institute.

He and his brother Walter, who did become a dentist, had their names attached to major youth enterprises.

- The Andy Young/Walter Young YMCA on Campbellton Road.

I mean, as I say, from global to neighborhood.

He's done all of that and is still doing it.

- [Donna] There's also the Truist Andrew and Walter Young Family At-Promise Center, a partnership with the Atlanta Police Foundation to encourage positive interactions with police officers.

A major thoroughfare through the heart of Atlanta leading to Centennial Olympic Park bears his name.

A trip down Andrew Young International Boulevard offers a view of his statue.

- He's a force, but when you meet him, he's so easygoing, you almost don't feel it in a way.

He says to me, "Kabir, you can get anything done "you want in your life "as long as you don't worry about the credit."

- He was a consensus builder.

He was that mediator.

He was able to cross aisles.

You know, he was a bridge builder.

And it's been consistent throughout his life.

And, you know, he showed us that way.

- They always talk about throwing a pebble in a pond and watching the ripples.

Well, Andy Young is a boulder in a pond.

And the changes that he has made possible personally, professionally, socially, economically, spiritually.

I mean, there are few people in modern history who have done more and seen through a lifetime of work that dream come true.

(soft piano music) - My life's been fun.

And I guess I'd have to say it's a success.

But I never have felt that I've lived up to my potential.

- [Donna] Andrew Young, a humble icon, instrumental in building modern-day Atlanta and a global legacy.

(soft piano music) - Ambassador Young tells the story that, in 1971 when he was the UN Ambassador, he attended a gathering in New York City with the then-new UN diplomats from China.

He says the quote, "awkward and hostile event," was only eased after one Chinese diplomat asked his first wife, "Where do you find good Georgia food?"

She replied, "Only at my house.

"When are you coming over?"

She went on to feed the entire Chinese delegation and their families with food that her mother drove all the way up from Alabama.

Food can have that kind of power.

Perhaps they should have served another American treat, since nothing is more all American than the hot dog.

But few realize that its early roots as an iconic food are firmly planted in Middle Georgia, Macon.

Atlanta influences everything is a popular phrase today seen on shirts, hats, and coffee mugs.

And while there is a measure of truth in this simple sentence, those in the world of hot dogs know Macon is the place that cuts the mustard.

Since 1916, Nu-Way Wieners, intentionally misspelled, has sold over 200 million hotdogs in Middle Georgia.

"Welcome, you all, to Macon," proclaimed Jim Cacavias, president and co-owner.

Along with his cousin, Spyros Dermatas, together they are a third generation of family hot dog ownership.

- It's very humbling, you know, to have a successful 108-year-old business that really has a cult following.

We had Little Richard come to the front of Cotton Avenue in his limousine.

And order his hot dogs and drive away.

- [Jeff] Nu-Way began with a Greek immigrant in 1916 pursuing his American dream with spices, meats, and hard work.

James Mallis opened a hot dog stand in Macon named Nu-Way Wieners, established the same year as Nathan's Famous in New York City.

Nu-Way is among the oldest hot dog restaurants in the United States.

- We found some old pictures on Cotton Avenue back in the late '20's, early '30's, 1930.

And it was interesting because we saw the hand painted Nu-Way logo, and underneath it it had Mexican-style chili.

And we've never ever seen that before.

You know, and it goes to show you as a Greek immigrant that came and kind of blended his spices and came out with a product that's still revered today.

- So here we are living in a state with two generational hot dog powers residing side by side, Nu-Way in Macon, 1916, versus the Varsity, Atlanta/Athens, 1928.

So this interaction you've had with the Gordys, I mean, was there ever a sense of, "Look, we like these guys a lot, "but business is business even in the hotdog world"?

- Yes.

But, you know, researching it, hot dogs are a local favorite.

And there's been no hot dog establishment that really has gone nationwide successfully.

Regionally, yes.

- Why do you think that is?

- Hot dogs are a local favorite.

You know, Nathan's went to Chicago, and they couldn't make it, you know, because people want a Chicago hot dog kind of like a sub.

- Kind of like beers.

- Yeah, exactly.

- [Jeff] The Varsity, founded by Frank Gordy, a Georgia Tech dropout who had operated his own hot dog stand since 1926 with profits from his popular stand called The Yellow Jacket after the Tech mascot.

Mr. Gordy was able to build the first, much smaller version, of the Varsity.

To do this, he sought the advice and direction of Mr. Mallis.

- Frank Gordy came to Macon, Georgia and talked to Uncle George, George Andros about hot dogs.

He heard about Macon.

He even went to Columbus and checked out all the other hot dog establishments because they never sold hot dogs.

- [Jeff] But it wasn't only hot dogs Mr. Gordy was interested in.

- But he was very curious about our family's secret chili sauce.

He wanted to know details about it.

- How many details were shared with him?

- Not very many, you know?

Uncle George was very cordial, polite, and, you know, answered most all the questions, you know?

- Perhaps the most notable thing about a Nu-Way wiener is the red hue.

Once standard in many hot dogs, it's now a deliberate choice and one of the more uniquely recognizable features of their hot dog.

But their hot dogs did not become red.

Maybe they should have become red, right?

- Could.

And, you know, Georgia is a red state.

(Jeff laughs) - Yes.

- No pun intended.

- Of course not.

But born of the Mallis-Gordy relationship, a sort of hot dog detente was born.

Neither proprietor would enter the market space of the other.

Meaning, no Nu-Way red dogs in Athens or Atlanta, and, no, "What'll you have?"

in Macon.

It does have that kind of vibe about it, doesn't it?

Almost a sort of North Georgia versus Middle Georgia feel.

- Right, very regional, very local favorites, you know?

- Do you ever have events where you find yourself both involved at the same time?

- Not really, no.

- [Jeff] Football games or anything?

- No.

No, we kind of keep our distance.

We had an opportunity at one point to maybe serve our hot dogs at Grant Field.

But, you know, after we gave it some thought, we decided not to interfere.

- Are we're talking lawyers here or are we talking financial inducement?

- We're talking about a lot of Georgia Tech connections here.

- Makes sense, I understand now.

Jim understands Georgia Tech.

He is a 1980 graduate of the institute and worked as an engineer for years before returning home to Macon to run the family business.

That's a responsibility, isn't it?

- Yes, it is.

It's a very big responsibility.

- What do you think it looks like in 50 years?

Have you thought about that?

- [Jim] No, I try not to look that far.

I think that's beyond my livelihood.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

But this business is evergreen.

You're optimistic that your heirs will be running this just as you have here in 2024.

- We hope so.

Family traditions, customs, you know, they have a very deep meaning in our Family.

Nu-Way is all about family.

(upbeat piano music) - Cutting the mustard in Georgia has never been easy.

For "Georgia Legends," I'm Jeff Hullinger.

Thanks for watching.

(uplifting music) (uplifting music continues)