To Andrew Young
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: April 25, 1961
Location: Atlanta, Ga.?
Genre: Letter
Details
On 24 March 1961 Young wrote King asking him for advice on accepting a position at Highlander Folk School.1 Although Young was satisfied working for the National Council of the Churches of Christ he wanted to return to the South and take a more active role in the civil rights struggle. Below, King writes Young to congratulate him on being invited to join the Highlander staff, but cautions him that he may be unemployed if the school is closed by the State of Tennessee.2 Young accepted the Highlander position in June 1961. Three months later he became a member of the SCLC staff.3
The Reverend Andrew J. Young
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
475 Riverside Drive
New York 27, New York
Dear Andrew:
Please accept my apology for being so tardy in replying to your letter of March 24. Absence from the city and the accumulation of a great deal of mail account for the delay.
I am very happy to know that you have been invited to join the staff of the Highlander Folk School.4 As you know, I am intensely interested in the program of Highlander and I have found it to be one of the most significant institutions in the south. It has served in the unique capacity of providing leadership training programs that are so desperately needed in this period of transition. Because it has pioneered in interracial activities, it has faced many problems and has received the complimentary term of being considered a controversial institution.
Now the question of whether you should come to Highlander is one that I must answer in the light of the present difficulties that they are now facing. As you probably know, the State Supreme Court of Tennessee has upheld a lower court decision to close the school.5 Since the decision was rendered on the basis of certain false accusations that have no constitutional questions involved, there is a possibility that this issue cannot be taken to the United States Supreme Court.6 If this is the case, Highlander may have to close temporarily. Just what the legal process is at the present time, I do not know. I have not had a chance to talk with Myles Horton recently. Certainly I would not advise you to leave the position that you are now holding unless you can be sure that Highlander will remain open. This can only be answered by Myles Horton and the lawyers.
If it remains open and you accept the position, I am sure that you will be able to render a unique service in the south. The south is in dire need of dedicated leaders who are committed to the great ideal of freedom and human dignity, and who are committed to the principle of Christian non-violence as the method to grapple with the problem of racial injustice.
I know that the foregoing does not completely answer your question but this is about all that I can say in the light of the present circumstances. Please know that you have my prayers and best wishes as you seek to make this important decision.
Very sincerely yours,
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Km
1. Andrew J. Young (1932– ), born in New Orleans, Louisiana, received his B.S. from Howard University in 1951 and a B.D. from Hartford Theological Seminary in 1955. Following graduation, Young became the pastor of United Church of Christ in Thomasville, Georgia, until his resignation in 1957 to become the associate director in the Department of Youth Work for the National Council of the Churches of Christ. In 1961 he accepted a position in the adult citizenship program at Highlander, which was later transferred to SCLC. By 1964 Young had become executive director of SCLC, a position he held until 1970. In 1972 Young became the first African American from Georgia to be elected to Congress since 1870. He remained a congressman until 1977, when President Jimmy Carter appointed him U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Young later served two terms as mayor of Atlanta.
2. The state of Tennessee brought charges against Highlander for running a bootleg alcohol operation. After a series of investigations and appeals, the school was closed and the property confiscated by the state in late 1961. Nevertheless, the school reopened as the Highlander Research and Education Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, the same year.
3. See Young to King and Wyatt Tee Walker, 11 September 1961, pp. 279–281 in this volume.
4. In March Horton wrote King asking him for his opinion of Young. In King’s response, he wrote: “I cannot for the world of me place Andrew Young!” (Myles Horton to King, 24 March 1961; King to Horton, 25 April 1961). King then wrote a letter to Stanley D. Levison telling him of the March 1961 letter he received from Young. Although King did not remember meeting Young, he was interested in determining “whether he is the kind of man who could work with me at SCLC.” He asked Levison and New York minister Thomas Kilgore to assess Young’s “ability, background and technical competence” (King to Levison, 25 April 1961).
5. Highlander Folk School et al. v. State ex rel. Sloan, 345 S.W.2d 667 (1961).
6. In the State Supreme Court ruling, the justices found that the question of integration at Highlander was not the major issue in the case, but rather whether Horton operated the school for his own personal and private gain and if the sale of alcohol on the premises violated state law. In October 1961 the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the State Supreme Court’s decision upholding the revocation of Highlander’s charter (Highlander Folk School et al. v. Tennessee ex rel. Sloan, cert. denied, 368 U.S. 840 [1961]).
Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954–1968, Boston University, Boston, Mass.