GEOFF BENNETT: Now a conversation with Ambassador Andrew Young, a pivotal figure in the civil rights movement, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a two-term mayor of Atlanta.

The country last saw him as he delivered a heartfelt homily at the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter last month.

I spoke with Ambassador Young in Atlanta last week to get his insights on the current political moment and his reflections on his extraordinary life of service.

Few lives have so clearly traced the arc of the civil rights movement as that of Ambassador Andrew Young.

Activist, diplomat, mayor, and statesman, his journey has both shaped and been shaped by the fight for equality.

Your life is a chronicle of civil rights progress in this country.

What does this current moment feel like to you?

ANDREW YOUNG, Former U.S.

Ambassador to the United Nations: You know, I don't know.

But the first thing that popped into my mind was the spiritual, lord, I don't feel no ways tired.

We have come too far from where we started from.

And nobody ever told us that the way would be easy, but I don't believe he brought us this far to leave us.

And I'm not worried.

I'm not anxious.

It's just another struggle.

My parents taught me to deal with the slights and oppression.

My father's mantra was, don't get mad, get smart.

He said, if you lose your temper in a fight, you lose the fight, and that your mind is the most powerful thing you have.

GEOFF BENNETT: Your father's advice to get smart, what does getting smart look like today?

ANDREW YOUNG: Well, never let your adversary define the problem, because the things that President Trump considers problems, I consider blessings.

GEOFF BENNETT: Like what?

ANDREW YOUNG: Well, I always have thought that my Christianity says this is my father's world.

And this hunger and starvation of God's children anywhere is a responsibility that I should assume if I can.

Nationalism went out in the 1900s.

In fact, that's probably what the Second World War was about, to say that we can't make it as a single nation this planet, and that we have got to learn to live together as brothers and sisters, or we will perish together as fools.

GEOFF BENNETT: Andrew Young got his start in the civil rights movement in the 1950s as a pastor.

He joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, becoming a key lieutenant to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., often responding to the many letters Dr. King received from politicians, activists and supporters seeking guidance.

Young says he and Dr. King ultimately bonded over their shared experiences and values.

ANDREW YOUNG: We had a similar background.

Both parents had been to college.

He was a privileged kid from Atlanta.

And I was in some ways a privileged kid from New Orleans, who we both just happened to be Black.

And he liked the way I would answer his letters.

But he never asked me to write a speech.

He would ask me to do some research on a speech that he had to give.

But, for one, he didn't read speeches and he didn't need anybody to write them for him.

And the ones that he wrote for himself were not his greatest speeches.

GEOFF BENNETT: Wow.

His greatest speeches were?

ANDREW YOUNG: The ones that got written up after he preached them.

Somebody recorded them and transcribed them.

But he didn't speak from paper at all.

GEOFF BENNETT: That was his process?

He would preach and whatever came to mind he would say and it would be recorded and transcribed?

ANDREW YOUNG: Pretty much.

GEOFF BENNETT: Wow.

ANDREW YOUNG: He did some writing.

He wrote his books.

But that was the way we did it in the Black church.

And then when I went to the tiny church in South Georgia, that's the first thing they said.

We know you have been up North, and the white folks up there have the same Bible we have, but we don't want you to come down here reading nothing from that Bible.

If it comes from your heart, and said, we don't like no paper in the pulpit.

He said, if you bring paper in the pulpit and start reading to people, he said, you're not going to have a church in three weeks.

GEOFF BENNETT: Wow.

No paper in the pulpit.

Yes.

What was Dr. King like?

ANDREW YOUNG: He was a lot of fun, for one thing, had a great sense of humor.

And you have to remember that he never made it to 40, that he was a very Young man.

He had a big, healthy laugh, liked to tell jokes.

He had the same kind of education that you have.

And his favorite -- I was his favorite, well, football, because he loved to kick me around.

(LAUGHTER) ANDREW YOUNG: Any time I made a mistake or said something, he said: "Now, if you had gone to Morehouse instead of Howard, you would know better than that."

GEOFF BENNETT: It was Dr. King who steered Young toward a career in public service.

When we spoke years ago, you told me about the last conversation you had with Dr. King.

It was right before he went to Memphis.

And he was talking about bringing the energy of the civil rights movement and transferring that energy, that vitality into politics.

Tell me about that.

ANDREW YOUNG: Well, it was just before he went to Memphis.

And he'd been preaching in New York.

And Harry Belafonte dropped by, and John Conyers from Michigan, and Tom Bradley.

I mean, there was a collection of political leaders, and they were talking about, where does the movement go from here?

And the general agreement was that we shouldn't have to have 1,000 people march to get a seat at the table, see, that if we want to change the books in our schools, if we want to improve the opportunities, we should have representatives that we elect.

And everybody agreed.

And that's why I ended up running for Congress, not because I wanted to, but because nobody else wanted to.

GEOFF BENNETT: He ran and won.

In 1972, Young was elected Georgia's first Black congressman since Reconstruction.

His ambitions reached beyond Washington.

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed him as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, making him the first African American to hold that role.

Returning to Georgia years later, he continued to shape history.

As mayor of Atlanta in the 1980s, he helped transform the city into a global hub, laying the groundwork for the 1996 Olympics.

He championed economic development, ensuring that civil rights progress translated into real opportunities.

These days, his nonprofit foundation is the outlet for his civil rights and humanitarian work.

Looking back on your life of service, all that you have accomplished, what do you want your legacy to be?

How do you want folks to remember you?

ANDREW YOUNG: First thing I thought of is, he tried to feed the hungry, because that's what we have been doing.

I mean, we called it minimum wage, and we called it equal opportunity employment, and we called it affirmative action, but it was really just trying to get all of God's children to have enough to eat, really structuring a society that is fair and gives everybody an equal opportunity to be the best that they can be.