(born 1932) A Georgia clergy member when the Civil Rights movement began to spread around the South. Young became active in crusades from Birmingham, Alabama, to St.

Augustine, Florida. Increasingly prominent in SCLC, he was elected vice-president of the organization under Ralph Abernathy. He left to pursue a political career, becoming the first African American elected to the Georgia House of Representatives since 1870.

In 1977 Jimmy Carter appointed him US ambassador to the United Nations; he was forced to resign two years later after it became known that he had met secretly with members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. From 1982 to 1990 he was a highly regarded mayor of Atlanta.