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Wal-Mart's odd partnership

Civil rights icon Andrew Young takes a PR job for the much criticized retailer, surprising some activists.

DECATUR, Ga. - At the grand opening of a Wal-Mart in a black suburb of Atlanta, civil rights leader Andrew Young danced with store clerks, bouncing to the song We Are Family.

He also posed with a $1-million check from the company - a donation for a memorial to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to be built on the National Mall in Washington.

Young took part in the pep rally in his new position as a paid corporate cheerleader for Wal-Mart - a role that has perplexed some of his longtime civil rights colleagues, who have all but accused him of going over to the enemy.

Activists for the poor have long complained that Wal-Mart skimps on wages and health benefits, forces employees to work off the clock and kills off mom-and-pop businesses.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery, known as the dean of the civil rights movement, said Young - the 74-year-old former Atlanta mayor and U.N. ambassador - is acting as a "lone wolf" in working for Wal-Mart.

"Maybe he knows something that other advocates for economic justice don't," Lowery said. "Maybe we will see the corporate giant be born again and become a good corporate citizen."

Young, who as one of King's top lieutenants was a business liaison during the civil rights era, said that by working for the world's largest retailer, he hopes to increase jobs and open other doors for poor people.

He defended his role as consistent with the ideals of the civil rights movement.

"Civil rights leaders are involved in helping poor people," he said. "That's what I've been doing all my life."

Young long ago left behind his protest days in favor of stumping for economic opportunity.

As a two-term mayor in the 1980s, Young said he attracted more than a million jobs and $70-billion in private investment to the city.

Since 1997, he has headed GoodWorks International, which works with corporations and governments to foster economic development in Africa and the Caribbean.

He and his company were hired last month to promote Wal-Mart at public appearances, in interviews and in op-ed pieces, said Kevin Sheridan of Working Families for Wal-Mart, a group organized with backing from the company. The group defends Wal-Mart Stores Inc. against attacks from critics.

Sheridan would not disclose how much Young and his company are being paid.

Young said he is not sure how much his company is getting.

"He obviously is a highly credible public face that brings very high degree of respect to any debate that he involves himself with," Sheridan said. "We take very seriously his advice and his counsel. The career that he has had fighting for poor and working folks for his entire career has been the focus of almost everything he's been involved with this group to date, and we continue to look for new avenues for him to speak out."

Last fall, in an effort to change its ways, Wal-Mart announced steps to make employee health insurance more affordable.

"This is a case where Wal-Mart is hiring someone to make them look good, but this is someone who will try, through friendly persuasion, to get them to review some of what they're doing," said Margaret Simms, an economist for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

[Last modified March 24, 2006, 02:15:43]