Andrew Young 'Resting' At Emory After Illness: Wife

ATLANTA, GA — Former U.N. ambassador and Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young is resting and receiving treatment at Emory University Hospital after being airlifted to Atlanta from Tennessee, where he fell ill.

In a statement released Friday, Young's wife, Carolyn Young, thanked the public for its support as the 86-year-old civil rights figure recovers from what has been reported to be a fever and infection. He was hospitalized in Nashville, where he was scheduled to speak at Fisk University, then flown to Emory where he could be treated by his own doctors, according to the Andrew J. Young Foundation.

"Thank you for the many calls, inquires and acts of kindness toward Ambassador Young," Carolyn Young said. "He is continuing to rest and receive the medical treatments. I am passing on all of the generous expressions directly to him."

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She said he is continuing to "rest and receive the medical treatments" at Emory.

A confidant of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and noted civil rights leader in his own right, Young began his career as a pastor and would become executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1972, Young was appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter.

In 1981, Young became Atlanta's second-ever black mayor, winning the race to follow Maynard Jackson. He was re-elected in 1985 with more than 80 percent of the vote.

After not being allowed to seek office again due to term limits, Young ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for governor of Georgia in 1990 — garnering 29 percent of the vote in a field that included eventual winner Zell Miller, then Georgia's lieutenant governor, and future Gov. Roy Barnes.

In 2003, he founded the Andrew Young Foundation, designed to support and promote education, health, leadership and human rights in the U.S., Africa and the Caribbean.

Photo courtesy Andrew J. Young Foundation