Because Jerry is a University of Georgia
football letterman, a couple of years ago we were invited to attend the
naming event for the Payne Indoor Practice Facility at UGA honoring letterman
and former Olympics Committee CEO, Billy Payne and his father, Porter. Billy
Payne and Jerry were teammates.
In a powerful op-ed piece in the AJC this past Sunday, Andrew Young wrote of the terrible injustices in our country, as well as the protests, but he also pointed to the viral plague that is wreaking havoc on our global economy. He pointed to partnerships and said, “We must find a way to live together and work as brothers and sisters . . .”
We wrote about that night on One Old Dawg. But because we met someone that evening whose wisdom
and advice is essential for the times we live in today, I want to highlight a bit
of it here.
Jerry and I had the very great privilege
of meeting Andrew Young, who has been a U.S. Ambassador, U.S. Congressman, and
Atlanta Mayor. As he spoke that night, he covered the challenges in bringing the Olympics to
Atlanta. He and Billy Payne traveled to over 100 countries, a black man, and a
white man with such love for each other, it gave the world a new picture of the
American South.
When the two men began
pitching the idea of bringing the Olympics to Atlanta, many thought it an
impossible task. But their close relationship and perseverance yielded an
extraordinary result.
Young praised Payne and
credited the hand of God for their successes. I had not realized that Andrew
Young started his career as a pastor, but his faith in God was obvious as he
spoke.
Young was a close ally of Dr.
Martin Luther King and participated in civil rights demonstrations in
Birmingham, St. Augustine, Selma, and Atlanta.
He related a story in an interview this week of the protest in St. Augustine where he and other marchers
came face to face with a white supremacist group. Instead of violence, they
chose peace and responded by singing. He said that choice led to action in
congress, the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Another extraordinary result.
In a powerful op-ed piece in the AJC this past Sunday, Andrew Young wrote of the terrible injustices in our country, as well as the protests, but he also pointed to the viral plague that is wreaking havoc on our global economy. He pointed to partnerships and said, “We must find a way to live together and work as brothers and sisters . . .”
We’ve read it and said it
many times during this pandemic, “We are all in this together.” But that
applies to other challenges as well. Though it may seem we are much divided in
many ways in our country, the truth remains, we are in this together.
It seems at every turn we are facing as Dr. King said, “a mountain of despair” right now. But as he also says, it is by faith we will be able to make of it a “stone of hope.”
In Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, he says that by faith, “we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.”
It seems at every turn we are facing as Dr. King said, “a mountain of despair” right now. But as he also says, it is by faith we will be able to make of it a “stone of hope.”
So, let’s pray and look to
the only One who can heal our broken lives, our splintered hearts, and our
fractured souls. Let’s ask him to root out racial bias in all of us. We must reach
out and love despite our differences. Who knows what God might do with any of
us if we fully surrender and allow him to use us as vessels to heal this
fragmented world? Who knows what unexpected beautiful thing might result?
Because as you might have
heard, we are in this together.
"Finally, all of you, be likeminded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble" (I Peter 3:8).
"Finally, all of you, be likeminded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble" (I Peter 3:8).