Andrew Young wheeled through the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum on Thursday, soaking in the history that he helped make.
The former pastor and civil rights leader, who worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr. at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was there during the 1966 March Against Fear in Mississippi. He was there when Grenada public schools began to integrate. Two years later, he was there when King was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.
When the bullet struck King, it severed his spinal cord, Young said. “He couldn’t feel anything or hear anything.”
The first thing Young thought of as he witnessed the assassination was the Bible story of the prophet Elijah.
Young looked out over the Mississippi River as the sun was sinking in the sky. “It was a beautiful set of clouds,” he said. “It was about 6 o’clock in the evening. I said, ‘Damn, Martin’s going to heaven in a flaming chariot.’”
The former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is slated to speak at 6 p.m. Thursday in the Medgar Wiley Evers Lecture at the museum. Ebony Lumumba, who chairs the Department of English at Jackson State University, will interview him for the event, sponsored by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute.
Inside the museum Thursday, Young saw the pictures of the fight for civil rights and voting rights. He played a role in pushing the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act through Congress.
Two Mississippi Museums Director Michael Morris, left, and civil rights icon Andrew Young talk about the young man between them in the photograph during a tour at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026, in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
He glimpsed photographs of himself, King and James Meredith making their March Against Fear in Mississippi in June 1966. That march included a terrifying encounter in Philadelphia, where a white mob, including Klansmen, hurled eggs, rocks and racist slurs at the marchers.
In September 1966, when the first Black students tried to attend what had been an all-white public school in Grenada, a white mob attacked them with chains, pipes and clubs.
The mob broke plate glass windows where the students were, Young said. Days later, on Sept. 20, 1966, he, King and folk singer Joan Baez safely escorted the students to school. Young is expected to reunite with some of those former students Thursday.
Young recalled, too, the 1968 Poor People’s March on Washington that started in Marks and ended at the nation’s capital a month later.
In 1972, Young became the first Black member elected to Congress from Georgia since Reconstruction. He served as mayor of Atlanta during the time the city hosted the 1996 Olympic Games and served as co-chair.
Rob Carpenter, left, drove from his Baton Rouge home in order to donate Charles Evers campaign posters to the museum. Carpenter met Reena Evers-Everette, daughter of Medgar Evers, and civil rights icon Andrew Young, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026, in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
The 94-year-old native of New Orleans continues to chair GoodWorks International, an organization that pushes for economic development in the Caribbean and Africa. His memoirs include “A Way Out of No Way” and “An Easy Burden.”
After finishing his tour Thursday, Young said it’s easy to think the museum deals only with the past.
“We’re not looking back on it, we’re in the middle of it. We would normally look at this exhibit as the old days,” he said. “The only thing we can do is realize this is not history. We’re still in a struggle to save Black men’s bodies and white men’s souls.”
