ATLANTA — Ambassador Andrew Young spoke of Hank Aaron's impact on Atlanta, crediting the legendary baseball player and American icon with making the city into one of consequence.
"We probably wouldn't be nearly what we are if the Braves hadn't moved here and brought Henry Louis Aaron with them," Young said.
Now the dean of Atlanta's Civil Rights heroes, Young spoke at the baseball legend's funeral Wednesday of the generation men like he and Aaron belonged to, and of how Atlanta once was.
Young said one day he was standing outside a hotel, "with a bunch of country boys who happen not to be my color," and Hank Aaron rode up on the back of a convertible.
"They mumbled to each other, 'you know that fella's gonna be able to buy a home anywhere he wants to in this town,'" Young said. "I said, 'Good God almighty, we got to be a big league city now. Just his presence, before he got a hit, changed this city."
The implication, Young seemed to make, was that even in a Deep South city dominated by the white supremacist system of the time, Aaron was towering and irrepressible. And his example helped bring the change to make Atlanta a great city.
Photos: Final farewell to Hank Aaron
"His mama had it right, when she called a 12-pound baby boy 'man,'" Young said. "He was and is the man."
Rev. Richard Wills Sr. of Friendship Baptist Church, in the funeral's opening remarks, described Aaron's passing "as if a mighty oak has fallen, leaving a gaping and glaring void on the horizon where its gallant place in life once stood."
Young echoed those sentiments, calling Aaron "the father to almost everybody in the Braves organization."
Young said the impact Aaron made on Atlanta "is global" and that "we have never been the same."
He shared that Aaron would lament, sometimes, that "all of my friends and brothers in the old Negro Leagues are gone except me."
"Well he's with them now, but he has not left us," Young said.
In Atlanta, "he will always be with us."