Andrew Young Reflects on Working Toward Peace

Ultimately, the success of a community and a nation requires sound, positive values. A community cannot succeed economically without political power, education, and a basic religious awareness of who one is as a child of God. The religious values of the black community in America sustained us through generations of slavery and segregation. Hard work, education, and faith in God did not prevent the oppression of black people, but they allowed us to resist the dehumanization that could have resulted. Our movement emphasized the importance of those fundamental values.

One of the great tragedies today is that absent a strong personal faith, young people anesthetize their pain with narcotics. In a society that grants them more freedom than ever before, they are prisoners of the poverty of their own spirits.

The young people that marched in Birmingham had far fewer material comforts than almost any young American today. But they were far richer in spiritual resources. They believed that they were children of God and that gave them the strength, courage, and discipline to overturn segregation. Values prepare a person or community to take full advantage of the opportunities a society provides.

At the same time one must question the values of a society that tolerates the kind of poverty that exists in the United States. Policies that deprive workers of a living wage, undermine educational opportunity, and seek to balance budgets by cutting assistance to the poor, the sick, and the vulnerable do not reflect the values of the America I love. The model set by such policies is "everyone for himself" rather than a democratic community working for the common good.

Biography

Resources for Teachers and Students