Alpha Phi Alpha’s Andrew Young Graduated from Howard University Before Becoming a Civil Rights Leader, a U.S. Congressman, the First Black U.N. Ambassador, and Mayor of Atlanta

Did you know that one man marched beside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., won a seat in Congress, broke a barrier at the United Nations, and led the city of Atlanta, all after graduating from a historically Black university? His name is Andrew Young, a brother of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., and his remarkable life of service began at Howard University.

Andrew Jackson Young Jr. was born on March 12, 1932, in New Orleans, Louisiana. He graduated from Howard University, the historically Black institution in Washington, D.C., in 1951, earning his degree at just 19 years old. He went on to earn a divinity degree from Hartford Theological Seminary and became an ordained minister.

Young is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African Americans, founded in 1906 at Cornell University. He carried the fraternity’s aims of manly deeds, scholarship, and love for all mankind into a lifetime of public service.

Young soon gave himself to the civil rights movement. He joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1961 and became one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s principal aides and strategists, helping lead the campaigns in Birmingham and Selma and rising to executive director of the SCLC. According to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, he stood among King’s closest advisors through the movement’s defining years.

In 1972 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia, becoming the first African American elected to Congress from the state since Reconstruction. Then, in 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed him U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. As the U.S. National Archives notes, he became the first African American to hold that position. He later served two terms as Mayor of Atlanta, beginning in 1982.

From Howard University to the side of Dr. King to the world stage at the United Nations, Andrew Young carried his HBCU foundation and the brotherhood of Alpha Phi Alpha into a lifetime of leadership.