Pontifex Publicus: The Bridge Builder – Andrew Young and the Integration of Policy, Economics, and Social Justice

“Named after the esteemed civil rights leaders, diplomat, and public servant, our school embodies Andrew Young’s spirit of public service and dedication to social justice. His legacy serves as a guiding light for our community… shaping our mission and values, and driving us to create positive change in our society and beyond.” ¹

Introduction – A Life That Embodied a School’s Mission

A century ago, the corner of Peachtree and Marietta Streets bustled with hotels, pharmacies, restaurants, shops, and theaters – a lively downtown block captured in early Sanborn maps.² Today, that same corner houses Georgia State University’s (GSU) Andrew Young School of Policy Studies (AYSPS), a space reimagined for public scholarship and civic leadership.

Reflecting the guiding principle behind Georgia State University’s most interdisciplinary school – one named not after a theorist of public service, but a gentleman who embodied its integration in real time. Andrew Young’s life spanned pulpits, protests, parliaments, and planning committees.³⁴ What links these spaces is not the title he held – but the resonant throughline of values-driven, integrative leadership. From the Civil Rights Movement to city hall to the United Nations, Young demonstrated time and again that structural change demands more than idealism – it requires moral imagination, economic vision, and administrative skill, stitched together with precision.⁴⁵ His legacy stands not only in Atlanta’s skyline or its global reach, but in the students who walk the halls of the Andrew Young School today, preparing to surmount public problems with that same layered, interdisciplinary lens.⁵

The Civil Rights Movement as Public Policy

Andrew Young’s path into public service was shaped by both spiritual conviction and political urgency. After earning a divinity degree from Hartford Theological Seminary, Young entered the ministry. After 6 years in Southwest Georgia, however, Young concluded pastoral work alone could not ameliorate the injustices encumbering his congregants in their pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness – or property for that matter.³ Come the 1960s, Young moved to Atlanta and joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) – becoming one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s closest strategists.³ During this time, he played a critical behind-the-scenes role in campaigns leading to the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, helping hearts and minds connect civil rights to economic and labor concerns.⁴ “We never thought of nonviolence as simply an appeal to the conscience of the administration,” he later explained. “It was about shifting the power alignments in society”.⁶ That principle guided his work in the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign, where he helped draft an “economic Bill of Rights” demanding employment, land, capital access, and participatory governance.³ These campaigns revealed early on that Young’s vision of justice required more than moral clarity – it demanded intentional policy, equitable infrastructure, and a method for wholistic transformation.

In 1972, Andrew Young became the first Black congressperson elected from Georgia since Reconstruction, carrying with him a civil rights ethos recently reshaped for legislative work. He viewed lawmaking as the next frontier for the movement, championing programs that expanded job training, housing access, and international development funding.³⁷ According to Levy, Young was part of a broader shift among Black leaders who “reframed protest politics in the language of policy and investment”.⁴ That same ethos defined his work as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (1977 – 1979), where he promoted Carter-era diplomacy grounded in mutual development rather than neocolonial dominance. He worked to strengthen U.S. ties with African and Caribbean nations nations (e.g., Angola, Cuba, Haiti, Nigeria, and South Africa), bringing his civil rights lens to the global stage.⁴⁷ “These countries are not poor,” Young argued. “They are simply underdeveloped… there’s tremendous wealth… that the skills and technology of the U.S. economy can participate in developing”.⁵ Whether in Congress or the UN, Young understood that civil rights without equitable access to capital was nothing more than a promise unfulfilled.

Economic Justice Through Political Power

Long before he held office, Young had already begun connecting economic deprivation to systemic injustice. As a lead strategist in the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign, Young helped craft a national mobilization that sought not just racial equality but “a meaningful job at a living wage… income for all who cannot work… access to land… access to capital… and participatory governance”.³ This was not protest for protest’s sake – it was an attempt to build a multiracial, cross-regional coalition that would redefine the scope of American democracy. The campaign anticipated themes that would define Young’s later career: public-private partnership, economic revitalization, and grassroots policy innovation. Though its immediate impact was limited by the aftermath of King’s assassination and logistical challenges, the campaign marked a critical turning point. It revealed Young’s emerging belief that lasting transformation required policy design, not just public dissent.

Mayor of Atlanta: The Integrated Approach in Action

When Andrew Young became mayor of Atlanta in 1981, he brought with him a philosophy forged through activism, diplomacy, and policy work: that public good could be advanced through private partnership. His administration sought to attract investment, expand infrastructure, and position Atlanta as a global city rooted in equity. During his two terms, the city welcomed $2.5 billion in new construction, 3,500 newly licensed businesses, and 43,000 new jobs – outcomes that earned him a reputation as a “rainmaker”.⁴

Young called this model “public-purpose capitalism,” aiming to align economic growth with social uplift.⁴ “We didn’t go to Washington for money,” he explained. “We went to Wall Street. We went to Rotterdam”.⁸ His economic ambitions for the city could be likened to that of a suspension bridge connecting Atlanta, Africa, and beyond – reconciling local opportunity with global development.⁹ But his bridge was not without its turbulence. “There were people who had worked for years to get into government,” he admitted in a 1985 speech. “And I come in as a mayor, and I say I want to do it differently. That’s going to create tension”.¹⁰ Critics questioned whether the benefits of growth truly reached the city’s weariest, nevertheless Young continued to build coalitions across sectors – championing his belief that progress required persistence, diplomacy, and compromise.

Education & Legacy: Why the School Carries His Name

            The decision to name GSU’s policy school after Andrew Young was not simply commemorative – it was thematic. AYSPS is built around the belief that economics, public administration, and social policy must not be separated, a conviction that Young lived long before the school’s founding.¹ In both mission and method, the school reflects Young’s approach to leadership: interdisciplinary, pragmatic, and rooted in public service. Its diverse student body, esteemed international research centers, and degree programs in economics, public policy, criminal justice, and social work mirror the interconnected challenges that Young spent his career addressing. From “public-purpose capitalism” to coalition-based diplomacy, his methods were not theoretical – they were applied, negotiated, and often imperfect. “Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela were not accidents,” Young once told graduates. “The schools they went to were created by people like you”.¹² This spirit of integration animates the classrooms and hallways I now walk as a student of social entrepreneurship – a model of public service Young not only practiced but believed future generations must be trained to carry forward.⁷

Long before I understood his role in history, Young shaped my daily life: my father’s job at the airport, my internship with the Peace Programs Development team at The Carter Center, even a commemorative family brick at Centennial Olympic Park placed when I was two (somewhere in block 62, I believe). It was not until after I enrolled at the Andrew Young School that I began to understand those connections – and to see that legacy is more than something we simply inherit or otherwise. Rather, like Sisyphus, we push it forward, inch by inch: arduous, yes – but virtuous. And unlike the myth, we strive never to be reset.

Conclusion – The Enduring Relevance of Unified Leadership

            Andrew Young’s life and legacy remind us that leadership is not about titles or stature – it is about how one connects vision to action, and values to systems. His career was a blueprint for interdisciplinary public service long before the phrase became fashionable. Whether navigating the halls of Congress, the floor of the United Nations, or the mayor’s office in Atlanta, Young practiced a form of governance grounded in conviction, coalition, and care. He understood the necessity and omnipresence of trade-offs, but never abandoned the belief that justice required intentional design. His approach echoes in the mission of the school that bears his name: to see policy not in static silos, but as an integrated field of economic, administrative, and social practice. “One of the principles of nonviolence,” Young once said, “is that you leave your opponents whole and better off than you found them”.⁹ If that principle can shape a life, it can surely shape a school – surely still, the nation.

Footnotes

1. Thomas J. Vicino, “Welcome from Dean Vicino,” Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
2. Sanborn Map Company, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Atlanta, Fulton County, GA (Sheet 4) (Digital Library of Georgia, 1899).
3. Andrew J. Young, An Easy Burden: The Civil Rights Movement and the Transformation of America (New York: HarperCollins, 1996).
4. Kevin Levy, “Selling Atlanta: Black Mayoral Politics from Protest to Entrepreneurism, 1973 to 1990,” Souls 17, no. 3–4 (2015): 423–444.
5. National Governors Association, “Second Plenary Session: Within Our Borders,” C-SPAN, July 31, 1989.
6. Lyndon B. Johnson Library. (1970, June 18). Oral history interview with Andrew Young. National Archives Catalog.
7. DeRoche, Andrew J. (2003). Andrew Young : Civil Rights Ambassador. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
8. Emory University. (2019, August 28). Conversation with Claire. YouTube.
9. Emory University. (2023, March 08). The Many Lives of Andrew Young. YouTube.
10. Young, A. J. (1985, August 16). Blacks in Government Keynote Address. C-SPAN.
11. Young, A. J. (May 1998). Connecticut College Commencement Address.
12. Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, “Welcome from Andrew Young,” Georgia State University.

Bibliography

1. Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, “Welcome from Andrew Young,” Georgia State University, https://aysps.gsu.edu/welcome-from-andrew-young/
2. Bridges, W. A. (1993, July 12). Andrew Young, Maynard Jackson, and Nelson Mandela talking together, Atlanta, Georgia. AJCP463-131b, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archives. Georgia State University Library.
3. City of Atlanta Bureau of Planning. (1970). Map of Atlanta. Georgia State University Library Digital Collections.
4. DeRoche, Andrew J. (2003). Andrew Young : Civil Rights Ambassador. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
5. Emory University. (2019, August 28). Conversation with Claire. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54X-K6LYLng
6. Emory University. (2023, March 08). The Many Lives of Andrew Young. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3sHN57pkhM
7. Levy, K. (2015). Selling Atlanta: Black Mayoral Politics from Protest to Entrepreneurism, 1973 to 1990. Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society 17, (no. 3-4), 423-444.
8. Lyndon B. Johnson Library. (1970, June 18). Oral history interview with Andrew Young. National Archives Catalog. https://www.discoverlbj.org/item/oh-younga-19700618-1-75-37
9. National Governors Association. (1989, July 31). Second plenary session: Within our borders. C-SPAN. https://www.c-span.org/program/public-affairs-event/nga-second-plenary-session/141133
10. Sanborn Map Company. (1899). Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Atlanta, Fulton County, GA (Sheet 4). Digital Library of Georgia.
11. Sanborn Map Company. (1950). Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Atlanta, Fulton County, GA (Vol. 1, Sheet 0d). Digital Library of Georgia.
12. Sanborn Map Company. (1950). Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Atlanta, Fulton County, GA (Vol. 1, Sheet 12a). Digital Library of Georgia.
13. Sharp, A. (1987, April 23). Mayor Andrew Young atop the 10 Park Place building, overlooking Woodruff Park, Atlanta, Georgia. AJCNS1987-04-23n, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archives. Georgia State University Library.
14. Thomas J. Vicino, “Welcome from Dean Vicino,” Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University. https://aysps.gsu.edu/welcome-from-the-dean/
15. Young, A. J. (1985, August 16). Blacks in Government Keynote Address. C-SPAN. https://www.c-span.org/program/public-affairs-event/blacks-in-government/93417   
16. Young, A. J. (1996). An Easy Burden: The Civil Rights Movement and the Transformation of America. HarperCollins.
17. Young, A. J. (May 1998). Connecticut College Commencement Address. https://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/commence/2/

“Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again.” – William Cullen Bryant et al.