Andrew Young returns to south Georgia city where he first became pastor for exhibit on his life

THOMASVILLE, Ga. (AP) — Annie Walden remembers 70 years ago when Andrew Young began his career as a pastor of a small Black church in Thomasville in 1955 — years before he became a civil rights leader beside Martin Luther King, Jr., a U.S. congressman, United Nations ambassador and Atlanta mayor.

“He stayed around the house with us a lot. He would go across the field with my husband. He laid some bricks on our fireplace and bragging that he never laid bricks before,” Walden said. “He was like family.”

She was among a large group of people who welcomed Young back to the south Georgia city Thursday, the place where he began a career reflected in the aptly named traveling exhibit “The Many Lives of Andrew Young.” The event was held at a local art center not far from historic Bethany Congregational Church, where Young became pastor before joining King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

“The lessons I learned here all lead to Birmingham to Selma to Washington,” Young, 92, told the crowd. “I was already on most of the paths, and you all pushed me the rest of the way up the hill. ... What you have here that you gave to me and my children, I was able to give to the rest of the nation."

The exhibit, created by the National Monuments Foundation, chronicles Young’s life through photographs, memorabilia and his own words. It's based on a book of the same name by Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Ernie Suggs.

Young also served as a pastor in neighboring Grady County before joining the SCLC. While working with King, Young helped organize civil rights marches in Selma and Birmingham, Alabama, and in St. Augustine, Florida. He was with King when the civil rights leader was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968.

In 1972, Young was elected to the U.S. House from Georgia’s 5th District, becoming the first Black Georgian sent to Congress since Reconstruction. He served as the United Nations ambassador under former President Jimmy Carter and was the Atlanta mayor from 1982 to 1990.

The Rev. Jeremy Rich, a local pastor who also was a minister at Bethany Congregational Church, spoke highly of Young.

“As a successor of Ambassador Young, but also as a pastor, county commissioner and a public educator, I find myself following in his footsteps in the values of trying to do the most good for the most amount of people,” he said.

In an interview with The Associated Press before the event, Young spoke about today's racial climate as some Republicans inject race into their criticism of Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.

“I don't know what they're trying to do. I don't think they know what they're trying to do,” Young said. “We've made so much progress on race and creed and class. Maybe that's too much, that they'd rather have a world run by just one group of people.”

FILE - A federal marshal reads a court order halting a planned voter registration protest as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., right, and fellow marcher Andrew Young, left, look on in Selma, Ala., March 9, 1965. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - Civil rights worker Andrew Young, walks ahead as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. hops over a puddle, in front of Rev. Ralph Abernathy, leading hundreds of African Americans to the court house in a voter registration drive in Selma, Ala. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - In this June 12, 1964 file photo, Andrew Young leans into a police car to talk to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the back seat with a police dog as he is returned to jail in St. Augustine, Fla., after testifying before a grand jury investigating racial unrest in the city. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young, left, joins Haiti's President for-life Jean-Claude Duvalier in a toast after their meeting, Monday, Aug. 15, 1977 in Port Au Prince, Haiti. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - Andrew Young is sworn in as United Nations ambassador by Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall, as President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter looks on at the White House, Jan. 31, 1977 in Washington. (AP Photo, File)

President Joe Biden, left, and civil rights activist Andrew Young attend an event commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, Monday, July 29, 2024, at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

FILE - Vice President Al Gore, left, along with Billy Payne, right, CEO of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG), and co-chair of the ACOG Andrew Young, standing at center, watch a video at the White House, Aug. 2, 1995, during a meeting of the White House Task Force on the Olympic Games. (AP Photo/Denis Paquin, File)

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Energy announced Tuesday that it is teaming up with yet another energy company as part of a mission to transform portions of government-owned property once used for the nation's nuclear weapons program into prime real estate for renewable energy endeavors.

The federal agency will be negotiating a lease agreement with Florida-based NextEra Energy Resources Development for nearly 3 square miles (7.8 square kilometers) of land surrounding the nation's only underground repository for nuclear waste.

The project at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southern New Mexico is the latest to be announced by the Energy Department, which has identified more than 50 square miles (130 square kilometers) of government land that can be used for constructing solar arrays and battery storage systems that can supply utilities with emissions-free electricity.

Other lease agreements already are being negotiated for projects stretching from the Hanford Site in Washington state, where the U.S. produced plutonium, to national laboratories and other sites in Idaho, Nevada and South Carolina.

Andrew Mayock with the White House Council on Environmental Quality on Tuesday echoed a statement made earlier this year when the first negotiations were announced. He said federal agencies are using their scale and purchasing power to support the growth of the clean energy industry.

"We will spur new clean electricity production, which is good for our climate, our economy, and our national security,” he said.

At the nuclear repository in New Mexico, federal officials say there is potential to install at least 150 megawatts of solar and another 100 megawatts of storage.

While the amount of energy generated by NextEra at the WIPP site would be more than enough to meet the needs of the repository, none would feed directly into government operations there. Officials said the energy from the solar array would be sold to Xcel Energy by NextEra and put into the utility's distribution system.

Xcel serves customers in parts of New Mexico and Texas, as well as other states.

Officials said there is no estimate of when ground could be broken, saying engineering and planning work would be needed once a lease is signed and regulatory approvals would be required.

The largest of the so called cleanup-to-clean-energy projects is slated for the Hanford Site, where Hecate Energy LLC has plans to deliver a gigawatt-scale system that would span thousands of acres on the southeastern edge of the property. It could be several years before that project comes online.

FILE - The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is seen, March 6, 2014, near Carlsbad, N.M. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File)