Open for Research: Andrew J. Young Papers + Jean Childs Young Papers

On Sunday, March 06, the Auburn Avenue Research Library celebrated the opening of the Andrew J. Young Papers, as well as those of his first wife Jean Childs Young.  Close to 400 people attended the event, which included a conversation between Ambassador Andrew Young and the Honorable Kasim Reed, Mayor of the City of Atlanta, a display of rare and unique items from the collection, and a catered reception.  It also received widespread media coverage. You can view the event here, listen to a report here, and read about it here, here, here, and here. 

AARL's Adiministrator Francine Henderson, Archivist Kerrie Cotten Williams, and Project Archivist Cheryl Oestreicher were part of the program.  Each spoke eloquently about the importance of public libraries, research libraries, and archives. For Oestreicher, it was an occassion to highlight the experience of working closely with Young's papers. You can read her address below.

 
Comments for Andrew Young Event - .

If you are interested in perusing the finding aids, visit our online finding aids here.

Next up for Oestreicher and team is the Atlanta Chapter of the NAACP records.  Stay tuned.


Posted by Wesley Chenault, Library Research Associate

Southern American Studies Association 2011 Conference: “Peoples, Publics, and Places of the Souths”

From February 17 to February 19, 2011, Georgia State University, our institutional neighbor in downtown Atlanta, hosts the Southern American Studies Association 2011 Conference, “Peoples, Publics, and Places of the Souths.” You can read about it here or peruse the program here. The Archives Division is proud to share news of grant-funded project staff and patrons who are presenting.

Dr. Barbara McCaskill and Christina L. Davis of the University of Georgia – whose research at AARL and elsewhere we’ve covered on four occassions – are presenting “The Atom Bomb of Auburn Avenue: Transregional Civil Rights Activism of J. Richardson Jones, Atlanta Daily World Reporter” as part of the session “Black Media, Black Business, Black Power.” Cheryl Oestreicher, project archivist for the CLIR Hidden Collections grant and AARL Archives blog contributor, is presenting a paper titled “Jean Childs Young: The Activist Beside the Activist” for the session “Unveiling the Complexity of Southern Social Activism.” Grace Lynis Dubinson, a graduate student in the History Department at Georgia State University and project staff for the NHPRC digitization grant, is chairing the panel “You Are What You Eat: Farming and Food as Social Markers” and presenting “Summary of the Urban Farm Movement: Cultivating Food Production in the 2009 Growing Season ‘You Can’t Eat Grass’” as part of “Uncovering Contested Spaces/Transforming Sacred Places.” Lastly, I am participating on the panel, “Practices of Public Scholarship: What public? Whose scholarship?”

The Archives Division wishes everyone well and looks forward to hearing follow-up reports from dear friends and colleagues.

Posted by Wesley Chenault, Library Research Associate

The Opening of the Andrew J. Young Papers

SAVE THE DATE!

On Sunday, March 6, the Auburn Avenue Research Library will host an event to celebrate the opening of the Andrew J. Young Papers.

In 2009, the archives received a grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources to process the collection. It documents the various aspects of his career and family life spanning more than 50 years, including his positions as a minister, civil rights activist, Congressman, Ambassador to the United Nations, Mayor of Atlanta, Co-Chair of the 1996 Atlanta Committee of the Olympic Games, and his involvement with Law Companies Group, Inc. and GoodWorks International.

The collection contains correspondence, speeches, press releases, calendars, books, minutes, reports, publications, articles, photographs, artifacts, textiles, trophies and awards, artwork, posters, programs, invitations, campaign memorabilia, manuscripts, travel documents, notes, sermons, ephemera, and audio-visual material.

More details to come soon. We hope you can join us to celebrate this momentous occasion!

Posted by Cheryl Oestreicher, Project Archivist

Archives and Publics: Andrew J. Young + Photograph Identification

The Andrew J. Young Papers contain nearly 40,000 photographs and slides that document Young’s family, life, and work spanning more than 50 years. There are photos of Young, his children, and his grandchildren as babies; his first ministerial post in the mid-1950s through weddings he performed in the 1990s; the SCLC Citizenship School through his GoodWorks activities; his first Congressional campaign in 1970 through his 1990 gubernatorial campaign; his Ambassadorial trips across the globe through bidding for the Olympics through tropical vacations; and everything in between.  (Below: Ambassador Andrew Young is pictured in his Waldorf-Astoria residence, late 1970s.)

Many prominent people appear in the photographs, including Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, RUN-DMC, Oprah Winfrey, Maya Angelou, Hank and Billye Aaron, Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King Jr., Jesse Jackson, Bill Cosby, Sidney Poitier, Garth Brooks, Harry Belafonte, Cornel West, Muhammad Ali, George Bush Jr. and Sr., Bill and Hillary Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev, Billy Graham, Rosa Parks, Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and Ted Turner and Jane Fonda. There are also many prominent Atlantans, such as Shirley Franklin, Sue Ross, Julian Bond, Hosea Williams, Jesse Hill, Joseph Lowery, Ralph Abernathy, Marvin Arrington, Zell Miller, Benjamin E. Mays, Bernard Scott Lee, Bill Campbell, and Maynard Jackson. (Below: Andrew Young, seated, identifies photographs for project staff, pictured left to right, Brenda Tindal, Mike Kaiser, and Cheryl Oestreicher.)

While the majority of the photographs were labeled or identifiable, many were not. On Tuesday, Andrew Young and his daughter Andrea visited the archives and helped identify the people, places, and events. Their assistance was invaluable as it not only helps us to organize the images, but will ease researchers’ use of the collection. As we documented what they said, we listened to their reminiscences about the people, the places, the events, and their lives. (Below: Pictured left to right are Mike Kaiser, Cheryl Oestreicher, and Andrew Young.)

Near the end of his time in the archives, he reflected, “We’ve really had a good life.”

For more information about the grant-funded project to process the Young papers and other civil rights related collections, see the CLIR Hidden Collections Grant blog.

Posted by Cheryl Oestreicher, Project Archivist

[The Andrew J. Young Papers at AARL are closed for processing and expect to be open in March 2011]