[1] Since leaving office, Young has founded or served in many organizations working on issues of public policy and political lobbying.

In a 1964 interview with author Robert Penn Warren for his book, Who Speaks for the Negro?, Young recalls the tensions of segregation in New Orleans, especially growing up in a fairly well-to-do household.

[5] In 1957, Young and Jean moved to New York City when he accepted a job with the Youth Division of the National Council of Churches.

While in New York City, Young regularly appeared on Look Up and Live, a weekly Sunday morning television program on CBS, produced by the National Council of Churches in an effort to reach out to secular youth.

Young played a key role in the 1963 events in Birmingham, Alabama, serving as a mediator between the white and black communities as they negotiated against a background of protests.

As a colleague and friend of Martin Luther King Jr., he was a strategist and negotiator during the Civil Rights Campaigns in Birmingham (1963), St. Augustine (1964), Selma (1965), and Atlanta (1966).

During his four-plus years in Congress, he was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, and was involved in several debates regarding foreign relations, including the decision to stop supporting the Portuguese attempts to hold on to their colonies in southern Africa.

Atlanta city councilman Wyche Fowler won the special election to fill Young's seat in Congress.

Although the US and the UN enacted an arms embargo against South Africa, as President Carter's UN ambassador, Young vetoed economic sanctions.

"[4] In 1979, Young played a leading role in advancing a settlement in Rhodesia with Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, who had been two of the rebel leaders in the Rhodesian Bush War, which had ended in 1979.

There had been a general election in 1979, bringing Bishop Abel Muzorewa to power as leader of the United African National Council leading to the short-lived country of Zimbabwe Rhodesia.

Many African-American activists, including Jesse Jackson and Coretta Scott King, supported the anticolonialism represented by Mugabe and Nkomo.

[4] However, it was opposed by others, including civil-rights leader Bayard Rustin, who argued that the 1979 election had been "free and fair",[12] as well as Senators Harry F. Byrd Jr. (I-VA) and Jesse Helms (R-NC).

As a result, on July 20, Young met with Zuhdi Labib Terzi, the UN representative of the PLO, at the apartment of the UN Ambassador from Kuwait.

[4] During the controversy, Young took a break and was invited by John F. Kennedy Jr. to speak about apartheid in South Africa at Brown University.

Asked about the incident by Time soon afterward, Young stated, "It is very difficult to do the things that I think are in the interest of the country and maintain the standards of protocol and diplomacy....

"[22] A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois at Chicago saw Young ranked as the fifteenth-best American big-city mayor to serve between the years 1820 and 1993.

Also, Young never found an issue that roused supporters, unlike Miller, who won voters by championing a state lottery.

[28] Young has been a director of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, and is also the chairman of the board for the Global Initiative for the Advancement of Nutritional Therapy.

[34][dead link‍] Young resigned from the position soon after a controversial interview with the Los Angeles Sentinel, in which, when asked about Walmart hurting independent businesses, he replied, "You see those are the people who have been overcharging us, and they sold out and moved to Florida.

[37] An edited version of Rwanda Rising served as the pilot episode of Andrew Young Presents,[38] a series of quarterly, hour-long specials airing on nationally syndicated television.

[41] On January 19, 2015, Young gave the keynote address at Vanderbilt University's Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Day.

The theme was "Dismantling Segregation: Race, Poverty, and Privilege", and Young spoke about his experiences in Selma, stories of traveling with King, and his advice to the next generation of leaders.

[48] Following a reading from the Book of Ephesians, Young delivered the homily at the state funeral service for Jimmy Carter at Washington National Cathedral on January 9, 2025.