Coffee With the Governor: Father Peter G. Young and Governor Rockefeller

Before he built treatment programs across New York, Father Peter G. Young was a parish priest in Albany’s South End with a cup of coffee and a friend in the governor’s office. In this Magic Hook from The Slingin Podcast, he takes us back to the day Governor Nelson Rockefeller walked in, asked him what he was doing there, and said he wanted to come see the work for himself.

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Watch: “Governor Rockefeller and the Harlem Drug Program”, Father Peter G. Young on The Slingin Podcast, Hoodz Radio.

Father Peter G. Young died on December 9, 2020, at age 90. Kay Bond recorded this conversation with him for The Slingin Podcast on Hoodz Radio.

In His Words

“Governor Rockefeller would walk in: ‘What are you doing here, Father?’ … We had a lot of communication and the governor was very interested. He said, ‘Now, Father, tell me. I want to come down and find out what you’re doing. I’ll come down and visit.'”

No appointment. No lobbyist. No stack of reports. Just a priest in the right office at the right time, and a governor curious enough to ask questions. The clip cuts off right as Rockefeller brings up what the papers were calling “the Harlem” drug. That moment opened a door Father Young would walk through for the next fifteen years.

Coffee Over Appointments

St. John’s sat about a mile from the Capitol steps. Father Young came to the parish in 1959, and the people showing up at his door had one problem more than any other: addiction. He knew the help they needed wouldn’t come from the pulpit alone. It had to come from the people writing the laws.

So he made the walk up the hill, every day. His childhood friend Harry Albright worked as appointments secretary to Governor Rockefeller, and Harry’s office became Father Young’s base. He would sit there with coffee while the governor roamed his offices. Rockefeller was inquisitive. He wanted to know how this priest knew Harry, and before long he wanted to know about the work.

Then he came to see it. The governor showed up at the South End shelter with his security, and the State Police, led by John Everhart, let him wander into a regular evening: a packed gym full of local guys who didn’t care much who had just walked in. They questioned him. And one woman, Olivia, told the Governor of New York exactly what she thought.

From the Memoir

From Chapter 8, “St. John’s and the Capitol Ministry,” in his memoir Fifty Years Young, Father Young lays out why he took his ministry to the Capitol in the first place:

“Most of the people at our door had an addiction problem, and I knew that if I wanted to change their lives I had to do the groundwork up there. So I went to the Capitol every day to advocate for them.”

Chapter 9, “When Governor Rockefeller Asked About the ‘Harlem Drug,'” opens with a line that tells you how the relationship really worked:

“I never had an official meeting with Governor Nelson Rockefeller. I didn’t need one. Everything that came of our friendship came through morning coffee.”

In the same chapter he explains why that South End visit mattered. Leaders usually get the guided tour. This one didn’t:

“High-level leaders are usually led around facilities on a protective agenda, so they see only the best and never the reality.”

Olivia’s words that night, as he recalls them: “Listen, honey, you need to do something to help us.” Father Young believes what Rockefeller saw opened his mind to new ideas. What followed, in his telling, was a parking spot on the executive ramp next to the governor’s limousine, a role as chaplain to the State Senate, and one major bill a year for ten years. Around the Capitol, the word was simple: “Father is a friend of our governor.”

Why It Matters Now

Here’s the legacy: a priest who refused to keep his people’s pain inside the parish walls. He carried it up the hill, put it in front of the most powerful man in the state, and then got that man to come see the block with his own eyes. Not the cleaned-up version. The real one.

That’s the movement part. Folks fighting for reentry and recovery today still need people who will show up where the decisions get made, day after day, and keep showing up. They still need leaders who will walk into the gym and listen. And they still need somebody like Olivia, willing to look power in the face and say, plain, do something.

Access is a tool. Father Young used his for the people at his door. The question for the next generation is simple: who are you bringing into the room, and who are you bringing the room to?

Watch the full conversation with Father Peter G. Young on The Slingin Podcast at HoodzRadio.com, follow Hoodz Radio so you don’t miss a clip, and look out for the 10-part series 50 Years Young, coming soon.

Respect the Legacy. Amplify the Movement.