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Charles Young (March 12, 1864 – January 8, 1922) 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, with 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 (graduated in 1887). 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. Towards the end of his five-year stay at West Point, the merciless discrimination and taunts decreased. Because of 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 (Cullum number 3330) with his commission as a second lieutenant, the third Black man to do so at the time (after Henry Ossian Flipper and John Hanks Alexander, and the last one until Benjamin O. Davis Jr. in 1936). He was first assigned to the Tenth U.S. Cavalry Regiment. Through a reassignment, he served first with the Ninth U.S. Cavalry Reg.... Discover the Rawn James Jr popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Rawn James Jr books.