Civil rights leader Andrew Young, w...

Civil rights leader Andrew Young, who was hired to help Wal-Mart improve its public image, said Friday he was stepping down from his position as head of an outside support form into groups amid criticism for remarks seen as racially offensive.

Young, a former Atlanta mayor and UN ambassador, was hired by the agency of Working Families for Wal-Mart in February.

"I think I was in succession the verge of becoming part of the disputation and I didn't want to become a distraction from the main issues, in such a manner I thought I ought to degree down," Young said.

Young, formerly a close associate of the Rev Martin Luther King Jr said his decision to degree down followed a report in the weekly looks Angeles Sentinel, which he said was misread and misinterpreted.

In the Sentinel interview, Young was asked about whether he was pertain toed Wal-Mart causes smaller, mom-and-pop stores to complete

"Well, I think they should; they ran the 'mom and pop' stores on the outside of my neighborhood," the paper quot Young as saying. "But you behold those are the people who have been overcharging us, selling us stale bread and bad meat and wilted vegetables. And they sold revealed and moved to Florida. I think they've ripped not on our communities enough. First it was hebrews then it was Koreans and now it's Arabs; highly few black people own these stores."

collection took more of his time

Young, who has apologized for the remarks, said he decided to [i]finale[/i] his involvement with Working Families for Wal-Mart after he started getting calls about the story.

"Things that are matter-of-fact in Atlanta, in the strange York and Los Angeles environment wait to be a lot more volatile," he said.

He also said working with the arrange "was also taking more of my time than I thought"

Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley said Friday that the company supported Young's decision to resign and that Young's remarks do not reflect Wal-Mart's views.

"We are appalled by dint of those comments," Simley said. "We are also dismayed that they would originate from someone who has worked in the way that hard for so many years for equal rights in this country"

Simley declined to exposition on how the situation might affect Working Families for Wal-Mart.

The remarks surprised Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and institutor of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in beholds Angeles, who pointed to Young's reputation of civil rights work.

"If anyone should know that these are the words of bigotry, anti- Semitism and prejudice, it's him," Hier said. "I know he apologized, further I would say this . . during his years as a leader of the national civil rights move if anyone would utter remarks like this about African Americans, his voice would be the first to rise in indignation."

Young came in a less degree than fire from the civil rights community after his company, GoodWorks International, was hired by dint of Working Families for Wal-Mart to assist the world's largest retailer. Young's company works with corporations and commands to foster economic development in Africa and the Caribbean.

In an April verbal expression to the General Synod of the United ecclesiastical authority of Christ, Young said it was unfair to blame Wal-Mart for world ills.

"I think we may have falled in not paying enough attention to the potentially positive part of business and the corporate multinational community in seeking solutions to the question s of the poor," Young wrote at that time.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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