Saturday, August 19, 2017

Andrew Young: Fights over Confederate symbolism are ‘a mistake’

 
“I think it’s too costly to refight the Civil War. We have paid too great a price in trying to bring people together…
“I personally feel that we made a mistake in fighting over the Confederate flag here in Georgia. Or that that was an answer to the problem of the death of nine people – to take down the Confederate flag in South Carolina.”

Fellow civil rights veterans Andrew Young and C.T. Vivian were at Paschal’s on Wednesday morning to endorse Ceasar Mitchell, the Atlanta City Council president, in this fall’s race for mayor.

Before we move away from that topic, let us note that Young, the former Atlanta mayor and United Nations ambassador, said he wanted to endorse Mitchell eight years ago – but his Howard University ties to Kasim Reed trumped that impulse.

The topic of Charlottesville quickly reared its head. A New York Times writer cited laws in some states, including this one, that prevent local communities from bringing down Confederate monuments. He asked Young and Vivian if they would endorse acts of civil disobedience that targeted the statues.

The reporter probably didn’t get the answer he expected from Young. Which, while he didn’t mention her by name, also might have been directed at state Rep. Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate for governor who on Tuesday called for the massive carving of Confederate leaders to be scrubbed from Stone Mountain.

Said Young:

More @ AJC

4 comments:

  1. Andrew Young is right. It's called "tolerance". --Ron W

    ReplyDelete
  2. That would be like (Mc) Cain whose great-great grandfather
    fought on the side of the Confederacy. He was also a
    deserter. Oh well. McCain’s great-great-grandfather served under the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
    So much for loyalty to ancestry.

    ReplyDelete