Andrew Young says the Supreme Court will ‘go to hell’ for weakening the Voting Rights Act

By John Blake, CNN

Atlanta (CNN) — In the office of civil rights icon Andrew Young there is a striking photo that took on new meaning this week.

It shows the man Young called his best friend — the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — watching television as President Lyndon Johnson delivers a speech urging Congress to pass voting rights legislation. It was March 15, 1965, a week after demonstrators marching for equal access to the ballot were beaten and tear-gassed by state troopers in Selma, Alabama. Millions of Americans watched Johnson end his speech with an allusion to the civil rights movement’s anthem, declaring, “And we shall overcome.”

Young was in the room with King that day. After Johnson’s speech ended, he glanced over at his friend and saw something he’d never seen before: King shedding tears of joy.

Six months later, the Voting Rights Act passed with overwhelming bipartisan support from lawmakers and the American public. The law would protect the rights of minority voters, as well as the elderly and poor, and became known as the “crown jewel” of the civil rights movement. Many believe the US did not become a true democracy until it was passed.

But that photo of King may now represent something else — a relic from a bygone era. That’s because the Supreme Court on Wednesday, in rejecting a contested congressional map in Louisiana, further weakened what’s left of the Voting Rights Act. The Rev. Al Sharpton said the decision put a “bullet in the heart of the voting rights movement.”

For Young, though, the court’s decision isn’t just political – it’s also personal. He marched alongside King for voting rights and helped draft the landmark law. Now 94, he has lived long enough to see its possible demise.

It’s a lot to process for Young, the former Atlanta mayor and US Ambassador to the United Nations. He spoke to CNN the day before the Supreme Court’s decision and became angry when asked about its potential implications.

“The Supreme Court will go to hell if they try to reverse it,” he said.

Young said he believes the Voting Rights Act created a better America. He cited NASA’s recent Artemis II mission, which featured four astronauts — a woman, a Black man and two White men on the first human flight to the moon in more than 50 years — as a snapshot of the inclusive country the law helped create.

“I don’t know why the Supreme Court … thinks that by backtracking on 250 years of constitutional government that’s going to do any better for the citizens of this nation,” he told CNN.

“We have come so close to making this Earth look like the kingdom of God.”

Young has a blunt response to critics of the Voting Rights Act

For many observers, the court’s decision was not a surprise. The Voting Rights Act has been under legal and political attack for years – especially under the recent conservative Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John Roberts.

Conservative critics argue the law infringes on the equal sovereignty of states and that the federal government shouldn’t interfere with state elections. The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once dismissed the act as a “racial entitlement.”

When reminded of these arguments against the landmark civil rights law, Young’s response was terse.

“Bullsh*t,” he said. “I’ve heard those arguments all my life.”

The fight for voting equality was one of the civil rights movement’s bloodiest and most harrowing struggles. Before the law’s passage, Black people were fired from their jobs, driven from their homes, beaten and assassinated while trying to vote.

Young bears his share of scars. He was knocked unconscious while leading a civil rights march in St. Augustine, Florida in 1964. He keeps a framed photograph of that attack on his office wall.

“I’ve been beat up and I’ve been jailed and the amazing thing to me is it didn’t even hurt,” Young told CNN. “I had bruises all over my body, but I didn’t even have a headache though I had a knot on my head. “

He said he and others persevered because of their beliefs.

“We have been willing to live and die for the United States of America – not for what it is, but for what we know it can become,” Young said.

Asked if he ever imagined years ago that the Voting Rights Act would be hanging on for dear life, Young said, “No, I didn’t think it would ever get back to this.”

But he hasn’t lost hope.

Young predicts the Supreme Court’s decision will eventually backfire and will mobilize Black voters and others.

“There’ll be a judgment day soon … that judgment day is Election Day,” he said. “I believe that the more people try to push you back, the faster we will push forward.”

At 94, no plans to retire

Young works out of a building near downtown Atlanta, not far from a street named after him. Walking into his office is like entering a time capsule filled with mementos documenting America’s sweeping evolution on race.

Framed photos of Young marching and conferring with King adorn the walls, alongside images of him laughing with baseball great Hank Aaron, tennis ace Arthur Ashe and entertainer Sammy Davis Jr.

His shelves are stuffed with books about social justice and history, alongside awards from Young’s seven decades of public service. He was the first African American from Georgia elected to Congress since Reconstruction.

He now does much of his work through the Andrew Young Foundation, a nonprofit that supports food security and economic development. He moves gingerly but still preaches every third Sunday at the First Congregational Church UCC in Atlanta and comes into his office about twice a week.

On the day he spoke to CNN, Young also powered through a series of other interviews and meetings without taking a break for lunch. He greeted well-wishers who stopped by with a smile and a hearty “Good to see ya.’’

He has no interest in retiring.

“Do you know anybody that’s retired that’s not bored?” he said. “You spend your time looking for somebody to play golf with and then when you get to the fairway, you can’t get the damn thing to go straight anyhow.”

But in recent years Young has faced many personal losses.

A daughter, Lisa Young Alston, died last year at 67. Already in 2026 he’s lost two close friends: the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Bernard Lafayette Jr., a dapper, soft-spoken man who was one of the civil rights movement’s most courageous activists. He lost another friend, President Jimmy Carter, two years ago. Other longtime friends and colleagues in the civil rights moment, such as Rep. John Lewis and the Rev. C.T. Vivian, are also gone.

Young is one of the few remaining figures from King’s inner circle, says Ernie Suggs, author of “The Many Lives of Andrew Young.”

“He says he doesn’t like going to funerals because he always has to speak,” said Suggs, a reporter at the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “He graciously does it, but it’s taxing.”

When asked if it’s hard to say goodbye to old friends like Jackson, Young gave a surprising answer.

“I don’t miss them because they’re with me,” he said. “Hardly a day comes by when I don’t think of something that Martin Luther King said to me.”

He remains convinced God is still at work in America

But hope is a muscle that Young has been flexing all his life.

He is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and approaches mortality with the perspective of a pastor.

“I’m a Christian and I believe that there is life beyond this life. I cannot conceive of the non-existence of humanity. I put my trust in the Lord,” he said.

“I’m convinced that God is on the side of the least of these, his children,” Young added. “A just society is a society in which all of God’s children have rights and opportunities that are protected by the Constitution.”

When asked about how those dismayed by the Supreme Court’s decision should carry on, a faint smile spread across Young’s face and a faraway look came into his eyes.

He then quoted a gospel song that was sung in Selma and throughout the civil rights movement.

“You know that song, ‘I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired’? ’’he said. He then paraphrased part of the song:

“We’ve come too far from where we started from, and nobody told me the way would be easy. But I don’t believe He brought us this far to leave us.”

John Blake is a CNN senior writer and author of the award-winning memoir, “More Than I Imagined: What a Black Man Discovered About the White Mother He Never Knew.”

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