Humphrey Birkenstock and Andrew Young at the National Prayer Breakfast

Andrew Jackson Young (born March 12, 1932) is an American politician, diplomat and pastor from Georgia who has served as Mayor of Atlanta, a Congressman from the 5th district, and United States Ambassador to the United Nations. He served as President of the National Council of Churches USA, was a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, and was a supporter and friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta was named after him. International Boulevard, near Centennial Olympic Park, has been re-named Andrew Young International Boulevard, in honor of his efforts to secure the Olympic bid for Atlanta.

 Media Fellowship International

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Media Fellowship International (MFI) is a Christian ministry that works primarily with leaders in the professional entertainment and media industries. MFI provides a peer group atmosphere in which members can confidentially share their concerns and experiences, talk about Christ, pray with each other and study the Bible together.

 At Prayer Breakfast, Obama prays for 'God's grace' to fill the 'space between us'

The annual National Prayer Breakfast was held this morning in Washington. President Obama attended  and he's using this day to make some faith-related announcements.

He's creating an Advisory Council on Faith, and he's naming Joshua DuBois (who ran candidate Obama's faith-based outreach efforts) to head a renamed White House Office for Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The Associated Press adds that the president will also today "ask for a legal review of the White House faith-based office before deciding whether to allow federally funded religious groups to hire only their own."

 The National Prayer Breakfast

is a yearly event held in Washington, D.C., on the first Thursday of February each year. The founder of this event was Abraham Vereide.^[1] The event—which is actually a series of meetings, luncheons, and dinners—has taken place since 1953 and has been held at least since the 1980s at the Washington Hilton on Connecticut Avenue N.W.

The breakfast, held in the Hilton’s International Ballroom, is attended by some 3,500 guests, including international invitees from over 100 countries. The National Prayer Breakfast is hosted by members of the United States Congress and is organized on their behalf by The Fellowship Foundation, a conservative Christian organization more widely known as "The Family." Initially called the Presidential Prayer Breakfast, the name was changed in 1970 to the National Prayer Breakfast.

It is designed to be a forum for political, social and business leaders of the world to assemble together and build relationships which might not otherwise be possible. ("[T]he breakfast is regarded by the Family as merely a tool in a larger purpose: to recruit the powerful attendees into smaller, more frequent prayer meetings, where they can 'meet Jesus man to man.'"^[2]) Since the inception of the National Prayer Breakfast, several U.S. states and cities and other countries have established their own annual prayer breakfast events.

The event has been criticized by organizations such as American Atheists and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, who describe it as violating separation of church and state.