A new book by Ambassador Andrew Young offers first-hand accounts of decisions that shaped Atlanta's growth from a small, provincial city in the Deep South to an international metropolis that influences global affairs.
 
Co-authored with Georgia State University faculty members Harvey Newman and Andrea Young, “Andrew Young and the Making of Modern Atlanta” chronicles Atlanta’s rise from the racially segregated “City Too Busy To Hate” in the 1950s to home of the world's busiest airport, the nation’s eighth largest metropolitan population and host of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games.
 
Andrew Young, who arrived in Atlanta in 1961, played a key role in Atlanta's development as a leading strategist in the Civil Rights Movement, a congressman and the city’s mayor. Young and his co-authors weave archival material, photographs and media reports into this account. They also recount the spoken recollections of key elected officials, civil servants, and community, business and civic leaders on the making of modern Atlanta.
 
“Atlanta provides a unique case study of the relationships among the city’s corporate, government and community leaders and their alternative, and ultimately successful, vision of progress,” said Young. “Our book tracks the development of this vision—the Atlanta Way—an economic development strategy of cross-racial cooperation from its foundation in Reconstruction-era Atlanta to the Olympic Games.”
 
“Andrew Young and the Making of Modern Atlanta” gives voice to the policymakers, their aspirations, strategies and challenges, and the economic and racial progress that resulted. In particular, it documents the grace and sophistication of the leaders of Atlanta's African American community in negotiating a path to greater political and economic power.