Charles Young (United States Army officer)
Charles Young was an American soldier. He was the third African American graduate of the United States Military Academy, the first Black U.S. national park superintendent, first Black military attaché, first Black man to achieve the rank of colonel in the United States Army, and highest-ranking Black officer in the Regular Army until his death in 1922.
In 2022, in recognition of his exemplary service and the barriers he faced due to racism, he was posthumously promoted to brigadier general, and a promotion ceremony was held in his honor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
Early life and education
Charles Young was born in 1864 into slavery to Gabriel Young and Arminta Bruen in Mays Lick, Kentucky, a small village near Maysville. However, his father escaped from slavery early in 1865, crossing the Ohio River to Ripley, Ohio, and enlisting in the 5th United States Colored Heavy Artillery Regiment near the end of the American Civil War. His service earned Gabriel and his wife their freedom, which was guaranteed by the 13th Amendment. His mother was literate, which suggests she may have worked as a house slave. The Young family settled in Ripley when Gabriel was discharged in 1866. Gabriel Young received a bonus by continuing to serve in the Army after the war, and he had enough money to buy land and build a house.In the late nineteenth century Ripley, Ohio was a thriving river town of about 2,500 residents. Before the war, Ripley was a major station on the Underground Railroad, led by men like Rev. John Rankin, a Presbyterian minister, and John P. Parker, a foundry owner and businessman who had been born into slavery, but was able to buy his freedom. Parker was literate and self-educated and he believed the way to equality for Blacks was through education. John Parker was the one who had assisted Gabriel Young in enlisting in the Union Army in 1865.
The Youngs lived on Cherry Street in Ripley. Charles attended the colored school and was also home schooled by his mother. He showed a musical inclination early in life, learning to play the piano and violin and as a teenager played at the AME Church for Sunday services.
In the 1870s, the schools in Ripley were semi-integrated; there were separate black and white schools, but there were a few combined high school classes such as upper-level languages that were integrated, as were graduation exercises. J.C. Shumaker was superintendent of the schools and J.T. Whitson was principal of the colored school. Both men recognized Young's potential and encouraged him to complete his education. During his high school years, in addition to the usual courses, Charles learned German and French, graduating with honors in 1881. Of the twenty-one graduates in his class, Young was the only one of African descent. Each of the graduates performed and/or spoke at the ceremony. Charles played a piece on the piano and gave an oration entitled "Let There Be Light".
Following graduation, before entering West Point, Young taught at the colored school in Ripley. Although there were separate schools for colored and white students, the monthly teacher meetings were integrated. At one of these meetings, Young presented a paper entitled, "We Must Educate".
During these formative years, in addition to his teachers, Charles was mentored by John Parker. Parker saw the same potential in Young that his teachers did and, consequently, did all he could to encourage Charles to excel; to move beyond his world in Ripley and to do his part to improve the status of his race in America.
In 1883, an ad in the Ripley Bee, the local newspaper, announced that an entrance exam for West Point would be given in Hillsboro, Ohio. Young took the exam and, of the twenty-six men who took it, he placed second. Each congressional district could nominate one cadet and Representative Alphonso Hart, of Ohio's 12th district, appointed William Stamats, but Stamats resigned the position. Hart then nominated Young in April 1884 and Charles left for West Point in June of that year.
Biographer Brian G. Shellum wrote, "Young was fortunate that his parents eventually settled in Ripley, Ohio. Ripley was a one-of-a-kind community, and the Youngs could have found no better place in Ohio to start their life."
West Point
When Young reported to the United States Military Academy at West Point as a cadet in 1884, there was already one other Black cadet, John Hanks Alexander, who had entered in 1883. Young and Alexander shared a room for three years at West Point. Young had to repeat his first year when he failed mathematics, delaying his graduation until 1889. Although regularly discriminated against, Young made several lifelong friends among his later classmates, but none among his initial entering class. He later failed an engineering class, but he passed it the second time when he was tutored during the summer by George Washington Goethals, the Army engineer who later directed construction of the Panama Canal and who as an assistant professor took an interest in Young.As one of the first African Americans to attend and graduate from West Point, Charles Young faced challenges far beyond the traditional hazing experienced by his White peers. He experienced extreme racial discrimination from classmates, faculty, and upperclassmen. Hazing was not an unusual practice at the military academies. Charles Young, however, was subjected to a disproportionate amount of abuse because of his color.
Upon arrival to West Point, Young was welcomed in as "The Load of Coal". Once, in the mess hall, a White cadet proclaimed that he would not take food from a platter that Young had already taken from. Young passed the White cadet the plate first, allowing him to take from it, then he himself took from the plate. Upperclassmen targeted and demerited Young 140 times, which was considered unusually high. Whereas Young's peers were referred to solely by their last names, Young was called "Mr. Young" as a kind of feigned deference. One of Young's greatest struggles at West Point was loneliness. A White classmate of Young's, Major General Charles D. Rhodes, later reported that it was a practice of Young to converse with some of the servants at West Point in German to maintain some human interaction.
Toward the end of his five-year stay at West Point, the merciless discrimination and taunts decreased. Due to his perseverance, some of Young's classmates began to see past the color of his skin. Despite this and by his own admission, Young's time at West Point was fraught with difficulty.
Career
Young graduated in 1889 with his commission as a second lieutenant, the third Black man to do so at the time. He was first assigned to the Tenth U.S. Cavalry Regiment. Through a reassignment, he served first with the Ninth U.S. Cavalry Regiment, in Nebraska. His subsequent service of 28 years was chiefly with Black troops—the Ninth U.S. Cavalry and the Tenth U.S. Cavalry, Black troops nicknamed the "Buffalo Soldiers" since the Indian Wars. The armed services were racially segregated until 1948, when President Harry S. Truman issued executive order.Marriage and family
Young married Ada Mills on February 18, 1904, in Oakland, California. They had two children: Charles Noel, born in 1906 in Ohio, and Marie Aurelia, born in 1909 when Young and his family were stationed in the Philippines.Military service
Young began his service with the Ninth Cavalry, from 1889 to 1890 he served at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, and from 1890 to 1894 at Fort Duchesne, Utah.In 1894, he was assigned to Wilberforce University in Ohio, an historically black college, to lead the new military sciences department, established under a special federal grant. A professor for four years, he was one of several outstanding men on staff, including W. E. B. Du Bois, who became his close friend.
When the Spanish–American War broke out, Young was promoted to the temporary rank of major of volunteers on May 14, 1898. He commanded the 9th Ohio Infantry Regiment which was, in the terminology of the day, a "colored" unit. Despite its name, the 9th Ohio was only battalion sized with four companies. The war ended before Young and his men could be sent overseas. Young's command of this unit is significant because it was probably the first time in history an African American commanded a sizable unit of the United States Army and one of the very few instances prior to the late 20th century. He was mustered out of the volunteers on January 28, 1899, and reverted to his regular army rank of first lieutenant. He was promoted to captain in the 9th Cavalry Regiment on February 2, 1901.
National Park assignments
In 1903, Young served as captain of a black company at the Presidio of San Francisco. He was then appointed acting superintendent of Sequoia and General Grant national parks, becoming the first Black superintendent of a national park. Because of limited funding, however, the Army assigned its soldiers for short-term assignments during the summers, which made it difficult for the officers to accomplish longer-term goals. Young supervised payroll accounts and directed the activities of rangers.Young's greatest impact on the park was managing road construction, which allow more visitors to enjoy it. Young's men accomplished more that summer than had been done under the three officers assigned to the park during the previous three summers. Captain Young's troops completed a road to the Giant Forest, home of the world's largest trees, and a road to the base of Moro Rock. By mid-August, the wagons of visitors could enter the mountaintop forest for the first time.
With the end of the brief summer construction season, Young was transferred on November 2, 1903, and reassigned as a troop commander of the Tenth Cavalry at the Presidio. In his final report on Sequoia Park to the Secretary of the Interior, he recommended that the government acquire privately held lands there. This recommendation was noted in legislation when it was introduced in the United States House of Representatives.