Charles Young was the third Black graduate of the United States Military Academy, class of 1889, in spite of the hatred, bigotry and discrimination he encountered as an undergraduate. Charles Young was born into slavery on March 12, 1864, to Gabriel & Arminta Young, in May's Lick, Kentucky, a small village near Maysville. That same year his father escaped enslavement and in February 1865 joined the 5th Regiment, U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery. Sometime after Gabriel's enlistment, young Charles and his parents relocated from Kentucky to across the river in Ripley, Ohio, seeking a new life in the river town which just happened to be the center of abolitionism. Ripley was a thriving town of about 2,500 residents. 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.
Charles was sent to an all-Black elementary school. He then attended the all-White high school in Ripley, the only one available. He graduated at age 17 with academic honors from the integrated high school in 1881. Of the 21 graduates in his class, Young was the only one of African descent. After high school, Young taught at the African American elementary school in Ripley for two years. Although there were separate schools for Black and White students, the monthly teacher meetings were integrated. He would continue to chase his thirst for knowledge and education while under the guidance and mentoring of renowned half-African American abolitionist 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. After encouragement from his father, Young took entrance exams for West Point and, of the twenty-six men, he placed second. but was not selected to attend despite having the second highest score. It wasn’t until a candidate dropped out the following year that Young received his acceptance letter. He entered West Point on June 10, 1884 to become only the ninth African American to attend the Academy and only the third to graduate. The other two Black graduates, Henry Ossian Flipper (1877) & John Hanks Alexander (1887), would earn their commissions but would only see short careers in the Army. Flipper would be drummed out of the Army over controversial and questionable charges of "...conduct unbecoming an officer..." Young and Alexander shared a room for three years at West Point.
Young had a miserable time at West Point. Charles Rhodes, a White cadet in Young’s class, remembered him as “a rather awkward, overgrown lad, large-boned and robust in physique, and of a nervous, impulsive temperament.” Rhodes recalled that Young’s “life was lonesome” at West Point––hardly a surprise, as most White cadets refused to associate with Blacks and subjected them to racial slurs, cruel slights, social isolation and hostile treatment beyond the normal hazing. 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.
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. Despite these indignities, he would persevere. After a dreadful first academic year, Young was faced with repeating his first year, in order to continue his education. Young considered quitting West Point after his first year, but his father convinced him to stay—though. Faced with a failing grade in an engineering class during his last semester, Young received tutoring from his instructor and was allowed to re-take the exam. It took Young five years to complete the curriculum. He had difficulty with engineering but excelled in languages, gaining a working knowledge of Latin, Greek, French, Spanish and German. Young graduated last in his 49-member class in 1889, and from 1894 until 1936 he was the lone Black West Point graduate in the Army.
In 1866, Congress established six all-Black Civil War and to patrol the remote western frontier during the "Indian Wars." Although the pay was low for the time, only $13 a month, many African Americans enlisted because they could earn more and be treated with more dignity than they often received in civilian life. According to legend, Native Indians called the Black cavalry troops "Buffalo Soldiers" because their dark, curly hair resembled a buffalo's mane and because they fought with fierce bravery and a fighting spirit similar to that of the buffalo. The Black troops accepted the name with pride and honor. After graduating from the academy, it was three months before he received an assignment because at the time, African American officers were not allowed to command White troops.
His first assignment after graduation was with the Buffalo Soldiers in the 10th Cavalry in Nebraska, and then in the 9th and 10th Cavalries in Fort Robinson, Nebraska, and Fort Duchesne, Utah, where the command and fellow officers proved more welcoming. While stationed at Fort Duchesne, Utah, Young mentored Sergeant Major Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. who later became the first African American to attain the rank of General. In 1894 Lieutenant Young was assigned to Wilberforce College in Ohio, to lead the new military sciences department. Young was to take over the planning and eventual teaching of the new Military Sciences & Tactics courses at Wilberforce University. Young organized the military training program which grew to over 100 cadets by the turn of the century.
Lieutenant Charles Young became one of the distinguished professors at the university around the turn of the century. While at Wilberforce, Young befriended W.E.B Du Bois, a classics professor who would become one of the leading Black American intellectuals of the early 20th century, as well as famed Dayton poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. After leaving Wilberforce, Du Bois and Young continued to correspond, and Du Bois considered Young one of the “talented tenth”—those individuals whom Du Bois and other prominent Black intellectuals believed would lead the struggle for racial justice in America. With the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in April 1898, on May 13 of that year Ohio Governor Asa S. Bushnell appointed 1st Lt. Young a brevet major in command of the 9th Battalion Ohio Volunteers, an all-Black unit. 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.
In February 1901 Young was promoted to captain in the Regular Army — another FIRST for a Black man. Two months later Young and I Troop sailed for the Philippines with the rest of the 9th Cavalry. Stationed on Samar, Young and his men fought the Filipino insurrections in the jungles of the island’s rugged interior. Because the U.S. Army was tasked with protecting the national parks in these early years, the Army would send troops to manage, maintain and patrol them. Because of limited funding, these assignments were always short-lived; the officers never served for more than two consecutive seasons. Consequently, little was expected. Young and his troopers arrived in Sequoia National Park in the summer of 1903 and proceeded to construct roads and trails that other troops were unable to do in the years before them. Young also supervised payroll accounts and directed the activities of rangers.
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. He was assigned "Acting Superintendent" of Sequoia National Parks in California for the summer, becoming the first Black superintendent of a national park. (At that time the military supervised all national parks.) He incorporated the local townsfolk to assist his troop's efforts and he and his troops' accomplishments from their summer of hard work were lauded by many throughout the area. 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. Young was transferred on November 2, 1903, to the 10th Cavalry, who were segregated at the Presidio of San Francisco and reassigned as a troop commander. He then married Ada Mills on February 18, 1904, in Oakland, California.
With the Army's founding of the Military Intelligence Department, in 1904 it assigned Young as one of the first Military Attaché to Haiti and the Dominican Republic on the island of Hispaniola. Young joined 23 other officers (the only Black man among them) serving in these diplomatic posts in the Theodore Roosevelt administration. He was to collect intelligence on different groups in Haiti, to help identify forces that might destabilize the government. Charles Young was very valuable to America in foreign posts because of his excellent command of foreign languages. He spoke fluent French, German, and Spanish. He won President Roosevelt's praise through an introduction Roosevelt wrote for his monograph on the people and customs of Hispaniola. Young's experiences in foreign service and as a commander in the Philippines formed the basis of his book, The Military Morale of Nations and Races (1911).
Captain Charles Young was sent to the Philippines to join his 9th regiment and command a squadron of two troops in 1908. Returning to the United States in May 1909, he took command of 2nd Squadron, 9th Cavalry. In 1912 Young was promoted to major and was once again selected for Military Attaché duty, this time to Liberia. He also taught military sciences and tactics at Wilberforce University in Ohio in between his military duties. In 1916, Major Young was awarded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's (NAACP) prestigious Spingarn Medal in recognition of his "Services in organizing the Liberian Constabulary and roads in the Republic of Liberia." In March 1916, Major General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing led an expedition into Mexico against revolutionary leader Pancho Villa in response to his attack on a garrison at Columbus, New Mexico. Commanding a squadron of the 10th United States Cavalry, he led a cavalry pistol charge against the Villista forces, routing the opposing forces without losing a single man. The Mexicans had already killed or wounded a number of Americans.
His swift action saved the wounded General Beltran and his men, who had been outflanked. Major Young was praised for his leadership and distinguished himself in combat, leading a squadron of the 10th Cavalry in a heroic pistol charge against the Villista forces to save an outflanked American unit and rescue American wounded. After the campaign, Young was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, on July 1, 1916, the first African American to attain the rank or its equivalent. He was assigned as commander of Fort Huachuca, the base in Arizona of the Tenth Cavalry. On the eve of U.S. entry into World War I, Young was on track to become the first Black General in the U.S. Army. However, there was widespread resistance among White officers, particularly those from the segregated South, who did not want to be outranked by a Black man. A Southern White lieutenant complained to the War Department that he did not wish to serve under a Black man, and Secretary of War Newton D. Baker replied that he should "either do his duty or resign." John Sharp Williams, senator from Mississippi, complained on the lieutenant's behalf to President Woodrow Wilson. The President overruled Secretary Baker's decision and had the lieutenant transferred.
At about the same time, increasingly influential southerners pressured Wilson's administration into shifting Regular Army Black troops from front line combat to prevent the likelihood of Black officers commanding White troops. This resulted in all four Regular Army regiments of Buffalo Soldiers being moved to positions nowhere near the European Theater of war. In July 1917, Young was medically retired and promoted to Colonel in recognition of his distinguished Army service. The FIRST African American to acheive the that rank. Young and his supporters asked for reconsideration of his retirement. To demonstrate his fitness to serve, Young, then 54, made a historic 500-mile horseback ride from Wilberforce, Ohio, to Washington, D.C. He met with Secretary of War, Baker, but nothing more would come of his stirring ride. Though medically retired, Young was retained on a list of active duty officers. To his bitter disappointment – he was not permitted to serve in the field during World War I. Instead, the War Department sent him back to Ohio to help muster and train Black recruits for the war.
Although he experienced racism throughout his military career, he remained disappointed that his record of achievement could not prevail against those in the military and elsewhere, who could not stomach the thought of a Black officer in command of White troops. Days before the November 11th, 1918 armistice, Young was assigned to Camp Grant (Illinois) to train Black servicemen. Shortly thereafter, at the request of the State Department, Colonel Young was sent once more to serve as military attaché to Liberia, arriving in Monrovia, February 1920. While on a visit to Nigeria in late 1921 he became gravely ill and died at the British hospital in Lagos on January 8th, 1922. Due to British law, Young's body was buried in Lagos, Nigeria for one year before it could be repatriated to the United States for final interment. In the year after his death, Young's wife and many other notable African Americans lobbied the U.S. to repatriate Young's remains from Nigeria so he could receive a proper burial in American soil. After arriving back in the U.S. in New York City in late May of 1923, Young's body received a hero's welcome. Thousands upon thousands celebrated Young's life as he made his way to the Washington, D.C. area. On June 1st, 1923, Colonel Charles Young became the fourth soldier honored with a funeral service at Arlington Memorial Amphitheater. After the memorial service, he was buried alongside the thousands of other heroes in Arlington National Cemetery. W.E.B Du Bois, who spoke at Young's eulogy, claimed that "the life of Charles Young was a triumph of tragedy."