ATLANTA, GA (WGCL) — Ambassador Andrew Young sees the actions happening in Charlottesville, Virginia and around the country as similar to the civil rights marches of his day.
He too faced neo-Nazi white supremacist. He tells the young people of this generation to follow the advice his father gave him back in 1936.
“They are white supremacy and white supremacy is their sickness,” Young said. “You don’t get mad, get smart. Never get angry with sick people because you’ll catch their sickness.”
Young says much of the debates now are over symbols and not substance which doesn’t achieve anything.
“We have not been concerned with symbols,” Young said. “We’ve been concerned with the substance. That has allowed us to live as brothers and sisters rather than perish together as fools.”
Young says race relations may look bad in our country right now. But he adds that’s part of a rapidly growing society and situations are much worse in other places.
“I’ve also been to 152 countries around the world and anybody that thinks that this country is going to hell in a hand basket go somewhere else and it will be worse,” Young said.