|
|
|
 Charles Young
(1864-1922) —
First African American U.S. national park superintendent, Commander of the Tenth Cavalry, known as the “Buffalo Soldiers”
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
— Shakespeare
By Bob Hilson
Charles Young was born into slavery but became the first African American to achieve the rank of colonel in the United States Army. He was shunned and ridiculed while a student at West Point Military Academy but later became the military’s highest-ranking black officer, a distinction he held until his death.
Col. Young was beloved by the soldiers who served with and beneath him, earning the nickname “Follow Me” by his troops, who vowed to give their lives for him when up against enemy forces.
A corporal under Young’s command recalled an incident in 1901 when Young and his men fought Filipino insurgents in the jungles of the island’s rugged interior. During the operation, Young was leading a scouting party when it came under attack.
“Captain Young had fired his revolver so fast that the sight was blown off,” the corporal said. Young then took another officer’s pistol and kept firing at the enemy until reinforcements arrived. “I never forgot that.” His father escaped
Enslaved as a child, Young spent his early years with his family in the small village of Mays Lick, Kentucky. His father escaped slavery in 1865 — a year after Young’s birth — and enlisted in the Fifth Regiment of Colored Artillery near the end of the American Civil War. Young’s father’s military service earned freedom for the Young family, as guaranteed by the 13th Amendment after the war.
His family settled in Ripley, Ohio, where Young was the only black student at an all-white high school. Despite pressure, prejudice and scorn from other students, Young graduated at the top of his class. He taught briefly at an African American high school in Ripley.
Young entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1884 and graduated in 1889 as one of the first African Americans to graduate from the prestigious school. But he struggled socially there, including being called a “load of coal” upon his arrival and the target of numerous racial taunts.
He graduated with his commission as a second lieutenant, at the time only the third black to ever achieve that rank. Because the military was racially segregated until 1948, Young served the next 28 years mainly with black troops: The Buffalo Soldiers, a nickname given to black troops of the Ninth U.S. Calvary and the Tenth U.S. Calvary.
In the early 1900s, with the U.S. about to enter World War I, Young stood a good chance of being promoted to brigadier general. However, there was widespread resistance among white officers, especially those from the segregated South and did not want to be outranked by an African American.
A lieutenant who served under Young complained to the War Department, and Secretary of War replied that the lieutenant should “either do his duty or resign.” Sen. John Sharp William from Mississippi complained on the lieutenant's behalf to President Woodrow Wilson. The President overruled the Secretary of War’s decision and had the lieutenant transferred.
While on a reconnaissance mission in Nigeria in late 1921, Young became debilitatingly ill and died of a kidney infection at a British hospital in Lagos in early 1922. Because his death  occurred in a British hospital, his body was required to be buried in Lagos, where it remained for a year. During that time, many notable African Americans demanded that Young’s body be brought back from Nigeria so that he could receive “a proper military burial.”
More than a year after his death, Colonel Young’s body was exhumed and returned to American soil. He received a hero’s welcome posthumously and given a full military funeral at Arlington National Cemetery.
|
