Young Accused on Sell Out: Who knew Andrew Young had any credibility left for corporations to co-opt? It was Young’s firm—GoodWorks International—that issued a 75-page report exonerating Nike of charges relating to the use of sweatshop labor in its overseas plants shortly before an independent Ernst & Young report found evidence of widespread abuse (a good summary of the problems with Young’s whitewash can be found here).

But now Young is under fire in African-American publications for taking on a new client, Wal-Mart. According to a cover story in Black Commentator, Young will chair Working Families for Wal-Mart, “a media sock-puppet for the ruthless multinational firm. The cynical misuse of his stature as an icon of the Freedom Movement, preacher, former elected official, and honored elder in black America to mask and obscure the crimes of his corporate client marks Mr. Young as nothing more nor less than a corporate whore.”

The hiring of Young has the potential to backfire big time if his history as a corporate shill becomes the story.