On a still, crisp September morning that poets dream about, former Mason County Judge-Executive James L. “Buddy” Gallenstein sat in a rural cabin about 2 miles east of Mays Lick at 6319 Helena Road that once belonged to an enslaved family and marveled at the life born there in 1864.
“I tell you: He was something else,” said Gallenstein, a most affable fellow who got his fair share of criticism for spearheading an effort by the county government in 2012 to buy the cabin and 38-acre farm with a large red-brick house for $220,000 and spending about $50,000 to repair the cabin.
“Can you imagine being born a slave in this place and wind up becoming one of the nation’s highest-ranking Black military officials who served all over the world?” Gallenstein continued. “He overcame so much in his life.”
Gallenstein was speaking of Charles Young, whose well-deserved fame finally is spreading.
Among Young’s numerous accomplishments, he was the third Black graduate of the United States Military Academy, the first Black person to be superintendent of a U.S. national park, the first Black military attaché, the first Black to achieve the rank of colonel in the U.S. Army, and the highest-ranking Black officer in the Regular Army until his death in 1922.
Many Americans believe Young would have been the first Black brigadier general in the U.S. Armed Forces had it not been for the political and social climate of the times.
A 1925 study by the U.S. Army War College falsely found that Black people lacked the intelligence, ambition and courage to serve in prominent positions within the U.S. military and should not be promoted over white officers or soldiers.
It was not until 1940 that Benjamin O. Davis Sr. became the first Black brigadier general in the U.S. Army. His son, Benjamin O. Davis Jr., followed in his footsteps and became the first Black brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force in 1960. The Davises and other Black generals who followed them, such as Colin Powell, acknowledged the trailblazing career of the man born into slavery in Kentucky.
History Took Its Time in Recognizing Young
At a ceremony at West Point on April 29, 2022, for the posthumous promotion of Young to brigadier general, Under Secretary of the Army Gabe Camarillo said Young “was a soldier, an intellectual, a civil rights pioneer and a man who loved his family deeply.”
At Young’s funeral at Arlington National Cemetery, writer, historian and civil rights advocate W.E.B. Dubois said Young’s entire life was “a triumph over tragedy.”
Within the last two years, more significant attention has been granted to Young. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine have designated 85 miles of roadway in each of their states as part of the Brigadier General Charles Young Memorial Historical Corridor.
In Kentucky, the corridor runs from Camp Nelson National Cemetery in Jessamine County to Lexington to the Simon Kenton Bridge over the Ohio River about 12 miles from Mays Lick. In Ohio, the corridor winds from Wilberforce—where Young was a distinguished professor at Wilberforce College and is home to the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument—to the Ohio River town of Ripley, where he went to school.
Some historians and veterans’ organizations are asking President Joe Biden to place the Mason County cabin into the National Park system before he leaves office in January.
Who Was Charles Young?
Young was born to enslaved parents Gabriel and Arminta Young in the cabin near Mays Lick on March 12, 1864, the third year of the four-year Civil War.
It was on the Willett farm and was built in 1790 as a small farmhouse. The large farmhouse on the property burned down in 1909, and a red-brick structure replaced it.
After Charles’ birth, his father escaped enslavement, and in February 1865, he joined the 5th Regiment, U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery in Ohio. Later that year after the war ended, he took his wife and son down the Ohio River from Maysville to Ripley, Ohio, to live.
Young Charles thrived there. A precocious youngster, he attended school in Ripley and was mentored by the likes of John Rankin and John Parker, abolitionists and conductors of the Underground Railroad to assist enslaved people escaping to freedom in the North.
At 17, Charles graduated with academic honors from his integrated high school class in 1881. After high school, he taught at the African-American elementary school. Charles’ father saw an ad in a local newspaper and encouraged him in 1883 to take the entrance exam to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York.
Though Charles tallied the second-best score among those tested, he did not gain entry until the following year.
On June 10, 1884, Charles became the ninth African American to attend West Point. He was not welcomed by fellow cadets and faculty. He often faced racial insults and social isolation. But Charles persevered and became the third Black cadet to graduate from West Point.
Three months after graduation, Young joined the 9th U.S. Cavalry in Nebraska and Utah, one of the four all-Black regiments known as the Buffalo Soldiers established by Congress to help rebuild the country after the Civil War and to patrol the remote Western frontier.
Between 1889 and 1907, Young was promoted to captain, taught military science at Wilberforce University, commanded a troop of the Ninth Cavalry in the Philippine Islands during the Philippine Insurrection, became the first Black superintendent of Sequoia and General Grant (now Kings Canyon) national parks, and became the first military attaché to Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
In February 1904, Young married Ada Mills Young in Oakland, California. They had two children—Charles Noel Young and Marie Aurelia Young—who became educators.
From 1912 to 1915, Young served as military attaché to Liberia, where he was promoted to major. He developed the Liberian Frontier Force, built roads and was wounded during a rescue mission.
From 1916 to 1917, Young was reassigned to the 10th U.S. Cavalry and served in Mexico.
He was told in 1917 that he had to retire. To prove his fitness for duty, Young rode and walked nearly 500 miles from Wilberforce to Washington, D.C., but he was not recalled to active duty until days before World War I ended.
He was recalled to active duty in 1919 as a military attaché in Liberia. While on an intelligence mission in the African country, he became critically ill with a kidney infection and died on Jan. 8, 1922. He was 57. He had faced adversity and discrimination in his long career but remained steadfast to do the jobs before him.
Young was buried in Lagos, Nigeria, with military honors provided by British troops. Family members and the U.S. Army insisted that his remains be returned to America, but British law required the body to stay in the ground a year because of health issues.
On June 1, 1923, Young became the fourth person honored with a funeral inside the Arlington Memorial Amphitheater, near where the solemn Changing of the Guard occurs. Although burials at Arlington National Cemetery were racially segregated at the time, Young’s rank as a colonel allowed him to be buried in Section 3, which had been reserved for white military officers. Young’s wife, Ada, died in 1953 and was buried beside him.
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Remembering Charles Young
While Young was living a remarkable life, the cabin in which he was born deteriorated. It had stood vacant for years.
In 2009, the late Jerry Gore of Maysville, a Black historian and educator, approached Gallenstein about the dilapidated structure.
Gallenstein convinced the county government, with support from the Kentucky Heritage Council, the Kentucky African American Heritage Commission, and the Black international Omega Psi Phi fraternity, to preserve Young’s birthplace.
Also instrumental in supporting Young’s legacy is the Charles Young Foundation. Its founder, Renotta Young—a descendant of Charles’—said her group was involved in getting Young promoted to brigadier general and has been working on “all aspects of Charles Young,” including entering the cabin into the National Park System and making the nearby house a museum.
Another major supporter of the Young legacy is Charles Blatcher III, chairman of the National Coalition of Black Veteran Organizations. “We are delighted that the memorial corridor has been nearly completed, and we are working hard to see involvement by the National Park System with the cabin,” Blatcher said.
Louisville author Brian G. Shellum has written five books about the life of Charles Young. “He was a true renaissance man who always had to walk the color line,” Shellum said. “He had the right temperament to do that. Besides his great military career, he was an accomplished musician and spoke six languages.
“He was not a big man—about 5-foot-8 and 163 pounds—but every Black officer since his days has stood on his shoulders.”