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Andrew Young, as Mayor of Atlanta, has developed a program that places the highest priority on economic development, creation of new jobs, and encouragement of new business-especially minority enterprises-in the city.

Mayor Young has initiated a major redevelopment project in downtown Atlanta, and is working to attract national and international investors to many potential industrial sites in the city. He supported passage this year of a new city ordinance to ensure more contracts for minority business enterprises. He also won approval of a $110 million project near downtown Atlanta, including the Jimmy Carter Presidential Park and a major housing development.

Mayor Young is working for the completion of construction ot Atlanta's international airport and also completion of the Atlanta area's rapid rail transit system-the most up-to-date mass transit system in the nation. 

In his first year as Mayor, Andrew Young worked to continue and improve the delivery of city services in Atlanta. Enhanced police protection reduced crime in the downtown and neighborhood areas. A major recreation program was carried out for thousands of young people during the summer. The mayor constantly promoted Atlanta as a center of culture, entertainment, sports, conventions, and education. He created a Task Force on Public Education which is supporting he public school systems and is now planning a "Dream Jamboree" next spring on educational opportunities for Atlanta's high school students.

Mayor Young has traveled outside the United States to attract new business to Atlanta, and to establish markets in other countries - particularly in Africa and other Third World nations - for products, services and technology available in Atlanta.

Andrew Young wants to make Atlanta a great international city, a showcase of minority leadership and enterprise, and a progressive city for all of its citizens. To achieve these goals, he has built a partnership between the city government and leaders in the business community, the neighborhoods and the elected officials of Atlanta.

As a result, Atlanta is "taking off" to success in many directions.


Dear Friend:

I am distressed by the Reagan Administration's attack on this country's poor, particularly by the economic threat it poses to the survival of the poorest Americans: blacks and other minorities.

That is why, with so many lives at stake, I have joined together with Mrs. Ralph J. Bunche, Bishop Joseph A. Francis, Senator Mark O. Hatfield, Leontyne Price, and Ray Marshall to establish the EMERGENCY BLACK SURVIVAL FUND.

The word "Survival" has been chosen deliberately. Because we believe that the economic, cultural, and physical survival of the nation's black community is endangered.

I want to ask you to join us - and the concerned, committed Americans whose names you see listed here - as an Advocate for Black Survival by becoming a Charter Supporter of the EMERGENCY BLACK SURVIVAL FUND.

Millions grimly facing lives without jobs, food, housing, or the hope that they might one day climb out of poverty: these are the realities of today's American. What happens tomorrow can only be imagined, but the future for the poor almost certainly hold a degree of suffering and deprivation unknown in modern times.

Almost two decades ago, I stood with Martin Luther King on the bridge at Selma, Alabama. since then, Black Americans have crossed many other bridges on the painful, often bloddy [[bloody]] road from slavery to desegregation. We have travelled that road too far and too long to be turned back from our goal by the pernicious forces at work in America today. One could almost believe that the intention is to sacrifice the lives and aspirations of an entire generation of poor minority Americans to help "solve" the nation's current economic problems.

Two million black workers can't find a job today, because of racial discrimination, lack of job training opportunities, and because the jobs just aren't there. We are living with an economic policy creating the highest levels of unemployment since the "Great Depression" and an Administration whose domestic priorities permit billions of dollars of waste at the Pentagon - but reserve an iron hand for funds for welfare mothers.

The crisis we face calls for each of us in a position to do so to speak out on behalf of those who are too hungry, too weak, too discouraged - or too intimidated - to speak for themselves.

The EMERGENCY BLACK SURVIVAL FUND is a united front of progressive, socially-committed, and compassionate Americans who oppose the manner in which the survival needs of the poor are being abandoned today. As Advocates of Black Survival, we will work to preserve the rights of the poor and minorities to share equitably in the benefits of this society, and to protect the "truly needy" from policies which reward the "truly greedy".
 
It is befitting that this phase of the civil rights movement is arising here in the South where over half of all black families are poor, compared to only 17 percent of white families, in rural areas. The EMERGENCY BLACK SURVIVAL FUND is the newest and most far-ranging initiative of the Southern Development Foundation (SDF), an organization founded in 1972 by Father A.J. McKnight to grapple with the roots of black poverty in Southern states. The story of this courageous black priest - and more about the SDF's success record is forging a new era of self-reliance among black Americans - is told human spirit can be nurtured through hard work and cooperation.

I hope you will read this brochure carefully - together with the urgent note Father McKnight has written to you - and then respond with as much commitment as you can.

We need your help to provide emergency assistance for those who must battle not only poverty, but the demoralizing - dehumanizing - effects of racism and prejudice.

In rural area, on farms, and in distressed urban centers, you and other Advocates for Survival will enable the EMERGENCY BLACK SURVIVAL FUND to help the most vulnerable among us fight back - using their own talents and resources to fulfill their lives and the promise of equality.

I know you care deeply about the poor, the disadvantaged,, the minorities in this country. I ask you now - please - to care enough to do all you can.

We, you and I, who have long advocated justice, equality, and dignity for all Americans, may be facing our most difficult challenge ever: ensuring black survival during this dangerous period of national distress.

I urge you to send your tax-deductible check - as large as you can make it - to the EMERGENCY BLACK SURVIVAL FUND immediately in the enclosed envelope, to help us reach those whose lives and futures are at risk.

In view of the concerns we share - and the daily worsening conditions - I hope you will join me today as an Advocate for Black Survival.

Sincerely
Andrew Young
National Co-Chairperson

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