Colonel Charles Young (1864-1922). First Black West Point Graduate to Achieve High Military Rank. Impressive vintage portrait copy of a signed, 1919 B&W photo of Colonel Young. Original photo declares, “Yours for Race and Country.”
Over his career, Young served in the Southwest with the 9th and 10th Buffalo Soldier cavalries, in the Philippines, both in Haiti and Liberia as the Army’s chief military attache (awarded NAACP’s Springarn Medal for supervising construction of Liberia’s infrastructure), and in the U.S.-Mexican Border campaign against Pancho Villa through 1916 and 1917.
Virulent racism kept Young away from command during WWI. Had Young not contracted nephritis while on assignment in Liberia, he might well have become the Army’s first African American general. His funeral procession from Pennsylvania Avenue to Arlington National Cemetery was unbroken by over 200,000 mourners and veterans’ groups, and Washington, DC’s black schools were closed for the day out of respect.