00:00 – Tom Dent interviews Andrew Young. Young talks about seeking purpose and order in his life. He realized he belonged to something beyond himself: the creator. He recalls standing on top of a mountain and looking out over the valley when he came to this revelation. 04:18 – He thought about what he had learned in Sunday school and biblical passages that hold particular meaning for him. 08:00 – Dent asks Young who he shared these thoughts with. He says Dent is the only one he shared with. He talks about reading Greek tragedies at this time. 09:45 – Young talks about going to Texas for bible studies with Reverend Nicholas Hood later that summer. He felt the same jubilation he did on the mountaintop. 11:50 – This introspective searching reached a new level for him. He was looking for a way to break from his parents, and religious authority was in keeping with their teachings, but was within himself. 14:10 – He tried to tell his girlfriend Sylvia Harper about his decision, but it upset her and they broke up. Young talks about his life of service to others. He talks about the title of the book, An Easy Burden, in terms of his life becoming simpler when he felt his life had a purpose. He felt he had answers in his life, and a value system that was alternative to the middle class value system. 20:00 – All these changes happened in one summer. He continued reading, and talks about what he read. This is when he read a biography of Gandhi. He talks about being saved as being made whole, and the conflicting selves that were all part of him coming together that summer. 23:00 – Contrasting Gandhi’s teaching and the Congregational Church tradition. It provided personal, social, and political meaning in his life. The political dimension appealed to him because he was black. 24:45 – He was already familiar with Negro history. He found a similar kind of soul searching in early Christian writing. He talks about more reading he did around this time. He was in no rush to succeed and found that life had its own pace. 27:20 – Young talks about meeting Jean for the first time at Tuskegee. He was convinced he was supposed to marry her before he even met her, after visiting her house. The first meeting was “cool.” They had a series of clashes. He talks about her getting angry at him when he took a photograph of her milking a cow. She agreed to help him with bible school. [Recording ends 32:01, continues on Side 2.]
