Andrew Young has held many titles over the years.

Reverend, civil rights leader, mayor, U.N. ambassador and now, tour guide.

Frank Niemeir / AJC

A new walking tour of Auburn Avenue includes an audio narrative by Andrew Young that was created with the help of the Center for Civil and Human Rights.

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The Center for Civil and Human Rights has recorded Young's memories of Atlanta's famed Auburn Avenue. The recollections were put on a podcast that listeners can hear on the center's Web site or by telephone. The recording was premiered at a ceremony earlier this month.

Young, 76, talks about going to the Royal Peacock to hear Jackie Wilson sing, of the numbers runners he saw on Auburn Avenue and how they helped launch Atlanta's music scene, of movement meetings in the basement of Ebenezer Baptist Church and at B.B. Beamon's, a restaurant that no longer exists.

"Those breakfasts [at Beamon's] were part strategy sessions, part church without the congregation," Young said. "But it was where the ministers got together to plan the full employment drives and the economic activities that later led to Atlanta being a completely desegregated city."

The audio tour is an effort to encourage more people to visit Auburn Avenue, said Amanda Brown Olmstead, a center supporter who came up with the idea. Organizers also wanted to make sure that anyone born after the civil rights movement had a record of the avenue's history and relevance during those historic days.

"This was really a terrific way to use technology to get the larger story of Auburn Avenue so millions of people who come who are drawn by the King Center have a better understanding of how someone like Martin Luther King evolved," said Young's daughter, Andrea, who attended the ceremony. King "emerged from a rich community tradition, and Auburn Avenue is an important part of the Atlanta story, the Martin Luther King story and the story of the civil rights movement."

The center also wanted to do "something new" before it opens. Center leaders have not picked a site for the proposed $125 million facility. They are also in the early stages of fund-raising efforts.

Auburn Avenue has long been considered a historic locale in African-American history. The street is home to the birthplace of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.; Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King was pastor; the Atlanta Daily World, which many historians say is the nation's first successful African-American-owned newspaper, and many other black-owned businesses. John Wesley Dobbs, the legendary civic leader, gave the avenue the nickname "Sweet Auburn."

Young's tales about Auburn Avenue, some of which come from events that occurred more than 50 years ago, are vivid.

There's the story of the former Casino hotel and the FBI tapes. Young said he, King and others met at the hotel, once located on Auburn Avenue, to listen to FBI audiotapes that attempted to discredit King. The tapes told a false story that King leaped out a window as a boy, hoping to get to heaven after the death of his grandmother. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover hoped the tape would encourage King to commit suicide before receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, Young said.

"We listened to those tapes and we laughed," said Young. "But the idea that our own government would stoop so low as to attempt to undermine the movement reminded us that we still had a serious struggle."

To listen to the podcast, go to www.cchrpartnership.org or call 404-921-0187 and press 1#. The podcast can be downloaded from the Web site.