A striking photo from the office of civil rights icon Andrew Young took on new meaning this week.
In the video, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who Young called his best friend, was watching television while President Lyndon Johnson gave a speech urging Congress to pass voting rights legislation. It was March 15, 1965, a week before demonstrators demanding equal voting rights were beaten and tear-gassed by state police in Selma, Alabama. Millions of Americans watched as Johnson concluded his speech with an anthem of the civil rights movement and declared: “We will overcome this.”
Yang and Jin were in the room that day. After Johnson’s speech ended, he glanced at his friend and saw something he had never seen before: King shedding tears of joy.
Six months later, the Voting Rights Act passed with overwhelming bipartisan support from lawmakers and the American public. The law would protect the rights of minority voters as well as the elderly and poor, and has been called the “crown jewel” of the civil rights movement. Many believe that the United States did not become a true democracy until the act was passed.
Ambassador Andrew Young examines a 1965 photo of Martin Luther King Jr. watching President Lyndon B. Johnson address Congress on television. Yang and Jin were in the room at the time. -Austin Steele/CNN
But that photo of King may now represent something else — a relic of a bygone era. That’s because the Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down Louisiana’s disputed congressional map, further weakening what’s left of the Voting Rights Act. The Rev. Al Sharpton said the decision “put a bullet into the heart of the voting rights movement.”
For Young, however, the court’s decision is as personal as it is political. He fought with King for voting rights and helped draft the landmark law. Now 94, he has lived long enough to see its possible demise.
For Young, the former mayor of Atlanta and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, there’s a lot to deal with. In an interview with CNN the day before the Supreme Court’s ruling, he bristled when asked about its potential impact.
“If the Supreme Court tries to overturn it, they’re going to go to hell,” he said.
Young said he believes the Voting Rights Act created a better America. He cited NASA’s recent Artemis 2 mission, which featured four astronauts — one woman, one black and two white men, and was the first human flight to the moon in more than 50 years — as a snapshot of the inclusive nation the law helped create.
“I don’t know why the Supreme Court … thinks that going back 250 years to constitutional government would be better for the citizens of this country,” he told CNN.
“We are very close to making this earth look like God’s Kingdom.”
Yang has blunt response to criticism of voting rights bill
To many observers, the court’s decision came as no surprise. The Voting Rights Act has been under legal and political attack for years, most recently under the conservative Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John Roberts.
Conservative critics argued that the law violated the equal sovereignty of states and that the federal government should not interfere in state elections. The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once dismissed the behavior as “racial entitlement.”
When reminded of these arguments against the landmark civil rights law, Young’s response was succinct.
“Nonsense,” he said. “I’ve heard these arguments my whole life.”
The fight for voting equality was one of the bloodiest and most painful battles of the civil rights movement. Before the law was passed, black people were fired from their jobs, kicked out of their homes, beaten, and assassinated when they tried to vote.
Yang also bears his scars. In 1964, he was knocked unconscious while leading a civil rights march in St. Augustine, Florida. He hangs a framed photo of the attack on his office wall.
“I was beaten and thrown in jail, but to my surprise, I wasn’t even hurt,” Yang told CNN. “I had bruises all over my body and a knot on my head, but I didn’t even have a headache.”
Andrew Young, wearing overalls, watches as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth and the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy hold a press conference after their release from the Birmingham City Jail on April 16, 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama. – Chris McNair/File Photo/Getty Images
He said he and others persevered because of their beliefs.
“We are willing to live and die for the United States of America — not for what it is, but for what we know it can become,” Young said.
Asked whether he would have imagined a few years ago that the Voting Rights Act would ever exist, Young said: “No, I don’t think it would ever go back to this.”
But he has not lost hope.
Young predicted the Supreme Court ruling would ultimately be counterproductive and would mobilize black voters and others.
“There will be a day of judgment very soon…and that day of judgment is election day,” he said. “I believe the more people try to stop you, the faster we will move forward.”
94 years old with no retirement plan
Young works in a building near downtown Atlanta, not far from a street named for him. Walking into his office is like entering a time capsule filled with memorabilia documenting the full evolution of race in America.
The walls are decorated with framed photos of Young marching and talking to King, alongside photos of him laughing with baseball great Hank Aaron, tennis ace Arthur Ashe and entertainer Sammy Davis Jr.
His bookshelves are filled with books on social justice and history, as well as awards from Young’s seven decades of public service. He was the first African American from Georgia elected to Congress since Reconstruction.
Ambassador Andrew Young, April 28, 2026. “Do you know any retired person who isn’t bored?” he said. -Austin Steele/CNN
He now does much of his work through the Andrew Young Foundation, a nonprofit that supports food security and economic development. He moves cautiously, but still preaches every third Sunday at UCC, the First Congregational Church of Atlanta, and comes to the office about twice a week.
On the day of the CNN interview, Yang completed a series of other interviews and meetings without even taking a break for lunch. He smiled and greeted the people who came to wish him well, and said sincerely: “Nice to see you.”
He has no interest in retiring.
“Do you know any retired person who isn’t bored?” he said. “You spend your time looking for people to golf with, and then when you get to the fairway, you can’t make the damn thing go straight no matter what.”
But in recent years, Young has faced many personal losses.
Daughter Lisa Young Alston died last year at age 67. In 2026, he had already lost two close friends: the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Bernard Lafayette Jr. Bernard Lafayette Jr. was a dapper, soft-spoken man and one of the most courageous activists of the civil rights movement. Two years ago, he lost another friend, President Jimmy Carter. Other old friends and colleagues from the civil rights movement, such as Congressman John Lewis and the Rev. CT Vivian, also left.
Andrew Young talks with his friend the Rev. Jesse Jackson at the African American Institute’s annual awards gala on September 20, 2016 in New York City. – Thoth Robinson/Getty Images
Ernie Suggs, author of “The Many Lives of Andrew Young,” said Young was one of the few remaining figures in King’s inner circle.
“He said he didn’t like going to funerals because he always had to talk,” said Suggs, a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “He was gracious enough to do that, but it was taxing.”
When asked if it was hard to say goodbye to an old friend like Jackson, Young had a surprising answer.
“I don’t miss them because they are with me,” he said. “I am reminded of what Martin Luther King Jr. said to me almost every day.”
He still believes God is still at work in America
But hope is a muscle Young has been flexing his entire life.
He is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ and views death from a pastoral perspective.
“I’m a Christian and I believe there is life beyond this life. I can’t imagine humanity not existing. I believe in the Lord,” he said.
“I believe God is on the side of the least of them, His children,” Young added. “A just society is one in which all of God’s children enjoy constitutionally protected rights and opportunities.”
Asked how those frustrated by the Supreme Court’s decision should move on with their lives, Yang had a faint smile on his face and a distant look in his eyes.
He then quoted a gospel song sung in Selma and throughout the civil rights movement.
“You know that song ‘I Don’t Feel Tired at All’?” he said. He then explained part of the song:
“We were so far away from where we started, no one told me this road would be easy. But I don’t believe he brought us this far just to leave us.”
John Blake is a senior writer at CNN and the author of the award-winning memoir, “More Than I Thought: What a Black Man Discovered About the White Mother He Never Knew“.
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