New doc exploring 'making of modern Atlanta' - and Andrew Young's role shaping it - premieres tonight
A two-part look at Atlanta's rise during the 20th century airs tonight
To some members of the younger generation, Andy Young might be more familiar as a name on a street or a building rather than Atlanta’s two-time mayor, a Georgia congressman, and ambassador to the United Nations.
To Newman, a professor emeritus at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University, it’s a name of a man who played a key role in shaping the current-day city. That tale, as well as Atlanta's rise during the 20th century, will be told starting tonight with the premiere of “Andrew Young’s Making of Modern Atlanta.”
The documentary, which Newman helped produce with Young's daughter Andrea, took several years to complete, and will air on Georgia Public Broadcasting in two parts. The first premieres tonight at 8 p.m. and the second airs on Jan. 14 at the same time.
Narrated by Young and Monica Pearson, the film chronicles the people and events that shaped Atlanta into the city it is today — and the strides Young made as mayor during the 1970s and his efforts bringing the 1996 Summer Olympics to Atlanta.
“Some young people weren’t born when the Olympics were held,” Newman says. “They don’t know Young’s legacy.”
The documentary — Newman says it is an update of sorts to Young’s book An Easy Burden, which documents the Civil Rights Movement — is about more than Young. The documentary, Newman says, is also about the political life and development of Atlanta.
The film chronicles key events such as the purchase of a racetrack that would later become Hartsfield-Jackson, the world’s busiest airport, the Civil Rights Movement, and the alliances formed between black and white civic leaders to work together peacefully in the public sphere. Interviews include Congressman John Lewis, D-Georgia, Charlie Loudermilk, Lonnie King, John Portman, and others who all had an impact on the making of Atlanta as civic leaders.
“It’s all about the key leadership decisions that shaped the city in unique ways,” Newman says. “We feel strongly that there are lessons there for a younger generation of leaders in this city and cities all over the place.”
Part I begins in the 1940s and continues through the 1970s, chronicling the movements and leaders who shaped Atlanta, including Maynard Jackson and Young's election as the first African-American congressman from the Deep South since Reconstruction. Part II will focus on the ’70s and end with the 1996 Summer Olympics that Young helped bring to the city.
A book that digs deeper into the story — it sheds more light on the development of Atlanta’s arts and communications — will be published later this year. A digital archive is also being prepared.