The new audio tour is an engaging, unique opportunity for residents and visitors to hear Young's memories as well as learn about the seminal importance of Auburn Avenue in the history of Atlanta and the Civil Rights Movement, said Doug Shipman, executive director of the CCHR Partnership, said.
"We want a new generation to understand these stories, be inspired by them and be encouraged to start the next movement," he said.
The CCHR Partnership premiered the podcast by hosting a special tour and lunch for civil rights, political and business leaders, as well as students from Georgia State University on March 10.
Speakers included Jesse Hill Jr., one of Atlanta's most prominent civil rights leaders and businessmen; Atlanta City Council President Lisa Borders, whose grandfather, Rev. William Holmes Borders Sr., pastored Wheat Street Baptist Church for more than 50 years; John Calhoun III, son of the late civil rights leader and Atlanta City Councilmember, John Calhoun Jr., for whom a park was dedicated on Piedmont Avenue in the Sweet Auburn district; and M. Alexis Scott, publisher of the Atlanta Daily World, a newspaper founded on Auburn Avenue by her grandfather, W.A. Scott II, in 1928.
Hill, former president and CEO of Atlanta Life Insurance Company, praised the accomplishments of the student movement in Atlanta.
"All the things that happened in Atlanta were led by the Atlanta University Center students," he said. "They turned this town upside down and we owe them a lot."
Borders, who played on Auburn Avenue as a child, acknowledged her grandfather's long-standing work in the community.
"When he saw a problem, he decided what he wanted to do and then asked for help," she said of William Holmes Borders Sr. "He left an indelible mark on the avenue."
His church, Wheat Street Baptist Church, developed Wheat Street Gardens, the nation's first federally-subsided, church-operated rental housing project.
Following the 1956 U.S. Supreme Court decision desegregating buses in Montgomery, Ala., Atlanta's African-American leadership, under Borders' guidance, launched the Love, Law, and Liberation (or Triple L) Movement resulting in the desegregation of Atlanta's public transportation system.
Calhoun, also "a child of the avenue," reminisced about his father, who registered tens of thousands of African-American voters in Atlanta and Georgia.
"The audio tour helps us remember where we came from," he said. "This tells us the things we have [today] did not just happen."
Scott, the third person in her family to become publisher of the Atlanta Daily World, acknowledged the legacy of her great uncle, C.A. Scott, long-time editor of the newspaper.
"The paper, under his leadership, reported daily on those stories affecting Atlanta's African-American community," she said.
Over the course of the 45-minute audio tour, Young, a former Atlanta mayor, United Nations ambassador and civil rights leader, shares personal experiences during the Civil Rights Movement, while retelling some of the rich history of Auburn Avenue.
"My father was very pleased to participate in the tour," said Andrea Young, a daughter of Young and a senior program officer for the Atlanta-based Southern Education Foundation. "The podcast is a great way of new technology sharing the history of Auburn Avenue."
Andrew Young was a top aide to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement, was involved in its inception and served as vice president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
He presently serves on the board of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change.
Young is also chairman of the Atlanta-based GoodWorks International, LLC.
The free podcast is available to download at www.cchrpartnership.org or iTunes.com, or it can be accessed via phone by calling 404-794-3709 and pressing 1#.
The tour concludes with remarks from individuals representing the legacy of Auburn Avenue referenced in the recording.
Stories included in the podcast range from Young's first encounter with John Wesley Dobbs to voter registration efforts in Georgia in the shadow of the Ku Klux Klan.
His personal accounts are intertwined with historical information about the people and places that made Auburn Avenue a key hub of African-American commerce, leadership and religion.
The tour begins at the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, where Young's papers are housed, and concludes at the Martin Luther King Jr. Birth Home, covering a distance of just less than one mile.
The recording is chaptered to allow the listener to tour at his or her own pace.
"The audio tour is long overdue and enhances the area," said Isaac Newton Farris Jr., president and CEO of The King Center.
The "Andrew Young on Auburn Avenue" podcast is the first in the planned "In Their Words" series presented by the CCHR Partnership.
Future podcasts may include first-person reflections on the student movement in Atlanta and the role of women in the Civil Rights Movement.
The Center for Civil and Human Rights is scheduled to open in 2010.
For more information, call 404-658-1877 or visit www.cchrpartnership.org.