\n<\/p>\n
It seems an unsavory phrase. Grunt work is more like it \u2014 efforts that may not produce headlines but keep the momentum of an historic movement going.<\/p>\n
Now 93, Young narrates \u201cAndrew Young: The Dirty Work,\u201d a documentary that premieres on MSNBC on Friday at 9 p.m. Eastern. Once she heard Young use the expression to describe what he did, the film\u2019s executive producer, Rachel Maddow, said she knew they had a title and a theme.<\/p>\n
Young was anxious to cooperate when approached by Maddow. He recorded some of his memories in six separate sessions during the past few months. Left unspoken was this recognition: When it comes to hearing directly from people involved in the civil rights battle, time is running short.<\/p>\n
Young was a recent college graduate when King first became known for his leadership role in the 1955 Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott<\/a><\/span> to protest racial segregation. Young wasn\u2019t sure what he wanted to do with his life, but he didn\u2019t want to become a dentist like his father. He felt a calling to join King\u2019s movement.<\/p>\n When he did, in 1957, he was handed a stack of mail. His first job was to write answers to letters sent to King, who would sign the response. \u201cHe liked the way I answered them and began to ask me to do more,\u201d Young recalled in an interview with The Associated Press. His behind-the-scenes job took shape.<\/p>\n \u201cWith that kind of role, you didn\u2019t get to take part in marches,\u201d he said. \u201cYou were always in the back of the bus, the back of the line. But I really wasn\u2019t seeking any recognition. I was trying to do some things that no one else would do. I just kept doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n When King prepared to take his fight against segregation to Birmingham, Alabama<\/a><\/span>, in 1963, he asked Young if he knew any white people in the city. \u201cI said, \u2018I don\u2019t know any Black people in Birmingham,\u2019\u201d he remembered. King knew that Young grew up in New Orleans \u2014 on the same block where the American Nazi party had its headquarters \u2014 and was aware than most people who worked with him had little experience with whites.<\/p>\n Young became, in effect, an advance man for King\u2019s campaigns. He would meet with clergy, business leaders and others in a community so they understood ahead of time what King wanted to accomplish, even if they disagreed.<\/p>\n Many people didn\u2019t know or understand that aspect of King\u2019s work, he said. By contrast, circumstances didn\u2019t permit that kind of planning for demonstrations after George Floyd\u2019s death at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020, he said. The angry response was instantaneous.<\/p>\n One time Young made the spotlight was during civil rights demonstrations in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1964. The intention was different; King wanted Young to avoid a confrontation with the Ku Klux Klan while the U.S. Senate debated the Civil Rights Act. Instead, Young was beaten up, and the resulting public revulsion helped the legislation along. \u201cI think it was the most successful ass-whuppin\u2019 I had ever received,\u201d Young recalls in the film.<\/p>\n After King was assassinated<\/a><\/span> in 1968, Young anticipated staying behind the scenes to support the movement\u2019s goal of electing supporters to office. But after the killings of King and Malcolm X a few years earlier, the danger made others reluctant to run, he said.<\/p>\n Young ran for Congress, first losing and then winning. His growing profile led President Jimmy Carter to appoint him ambassador to the United Nations<\/a><\/span>. Young later served as mayor of Atlanta in the 1980s.<\/p>\n \u201cI started bumping into people and they started giving me challenges,\u201d Young told the AP. \u201cAnd that\u2019s the way my life has been for the last 75 years.\u201d<\/p>\n Listening to Young talk about his experiences changed Maddow\u2019s life, she told The Associated Press, and made her realize the extent of sacrifices made by people involved in such work.<\/p>\n \u201cBravery is very romantic when you\u2019re talking about it in the abstract,\u201d she said. \u201cBut bravery is about sacrifice and pain and loss when you\u2019re living it. I think Ambassador Young is really eloquent about that.\u201d<\/p>\n She was intrigued by stories of internal conflict behind the scenes in King\u2019s movement; Young talked about almost coming to blows with a colleague in a meeting following King\u2019s assassination. While the overall destination may be clear, people don\u2019t always agree on how to get there.<\/p>\n Since she stopped anchoring a prime-time show<\/a><\/span> five nights a week and producing other content like podcasts and films, Maddow said depicting Americans in different eras fighting against anti-Democratic or authoritarian impulses is a regular theme of her work<\/a><\/span>. The Young documentary fits right in, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWith what\u2019s going on in the news right now and in our country, it\u2019s never been more important I think to learn from the example of people who have been part of movements like the civil rights movement \u2014 not just morally upstanding ones but successful against incredible odds,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Every American who wants to contribute politically needs to figure out what they\u2019re good at and what they have the capacity to do, she said.<\/p>\n Young concludes in the film that \u201cI have lived much of the dream<\/a><\/span> that (King) was speaking about.\u201d Even at 93, Young said he doesn\u2019t believe his work is done. Providing his reflections for \u201cAndrew Young: The Dirty Work\u201d is part of it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was well worth my time to sit down and spell it out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http:\/\/x.com\/dbauder<\/a><\/span> and https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/dbauder.bsky.social<\/a><\/span>\n <\/div>\n \/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js<\/a><\/p>\n window.fbAsyncInit = function() { };<\/p>\n (function(d, s, id){ Former U.N. ambassador Andrew Young says that he was often responsible for \u201cthe dirty work\u201d during his time fighting for civil rights with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s. It seems an unsavory phrase. Grunt work is more like it \u2014 efforts that may not produce headlines but keep the momentum of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Former-UN-Ambassador-Andrew-Young-describes-dirty-work-of-civil.com2F902F4a2F86e91c9943fe909e6a5b588526472F88a625686d484003938f.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6332"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6334,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6332\/revisions\/6334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Moving to spotlight from behind the scenes<\/h2>\n
Maddow sees lessons for today in Young film<\/h2>\n
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