Charles Young was the son of a slave and West Point's only black cadet, in 1884.  In disdain, the white cadets, mostly of the Confederacy, would not talk to him.  But he refused to be frozen out.  A talented linguist, he spoke to the foreign bootblacks on campus, instead.  Much later, as an officer, he'd say that the worst thing he could ever wish on any enemy was to be a black cadet at the United States Military Academy.       With the greatest fortitude, against the greatest odds, he dared the boundaries of his time to become the Army's first black Colonel.  He was a great hero in the black community, he was a Martin Luther King to his generation.  His picture hung everywhere.

     As a young second lieutenant, Young was sent out West to serve along the frontiers of Utah and Nebraska.  He was the only black officer in the all-black 9th and 10th Cavaliers, the legendary "Buffalo Soldiers".  To teach his troopers to trust themselves and their horses.  He used to throw himselve off his horse, allowing two cavalry troops to gallop over him.  He was deeply respected and loved by his men.  They called him "Follow Me Young".
 

While fighting in the Phillipines, he was promoted to Captain.  He served in Haiti and Liberia.  He became the first black Major in the U.S. Army.  Under General John Pershing, he chased the outlaw-hero Pancho Villa, back into Mexico.  "Black Jack" Pershing recommended that Young be promoted to General.  He would have been America's first black General.  The black media clamored for his promotion.  But he was not promoted.      When World War I began, the Army rejected him for active service.  To prove his fitness for duty, he saddled his mare Dolly, and rode 500 miles from Xenia, OH, to Washington D.C. and back again.  But the Army still refused to recall him.  There was a bitter outcry from the black community.  The black media charged that the Army refused to recall him because they would have to promote him to General.

Young spent the next years as a professor of Military Science at Wilberforce University.  He also taught mathematics and French.  A gifted scholar and artists, as well as a soldier, he spoke five languages fluently, composed for the piano and violin.  He also produced pageants and wrote poetry.  He was active in the civil rights movement of his day.  His home and huge library, the Colonel Young House, at Wilberforce University, became the center of black thought.  All the leading black thinkers and activists met there, to debate the  issues of the day.      After World War I, Young made headlines again, when he objected to having a monument built to honor the black soldiers of World War I.  He thundered:  "First, let the Congress of the United States come clean  and give them the thing for which they fought..... their liberty!".  All of the black media, and much of the white media carried his impassioned plea.      He pioneered new ground again, when he was appointed U.S. Military Attache to Haiti and Liberia.  He was America's first black Military Attache.