Charles Young's Early Life, 1864–1884: From Slavery to West Point

From left: Charles Young at about 10, Gabriel Young, Arminta Young, and Charles as a West Point cadet. National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center, Wilberforce, Ohio.

Freedom

Charles Young was born enslaved on March 12, 1864, in May's Lick, Kentucky, to Gabriel and Arminta Young.

• Arminta had been taught to read and write by her mother — valuable and risky skills, since educating enslaved people was illegal in many places.
• Gabriel failed in his first attempt to escape, but succeeded the second time — with his wife and infant son.
• In uniform: in Ripley, Ohio, Gabriel enlisted in the Union Army on February 13, 1865, in the 5th U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery, serving 15 months at Vicksburg, Mississippi. After the war the family settled in Ripley, an abolitionist town and active Underground Railroad stop.

Learning

• At home: Arminta taught Charles to read and write before he started school, where he earned good grades.
• Music: one day Gabriel, heading home to Cherry Street, saw Charles and other boys dancing for coins tossed by an amused onlooker. Angry, he scolded his son — then bought him a melodeon and paid for lessons. Charles learned quickly, played for Sunday school and services at the town's AME and Baptist churches, and also took up the violin.
• School: even progressive Ripley had segregated schools; Black children were about 25 percent of students. Basic subjects were separate, but some, like foreign languages, were integrated. Charles was the first Black student to take French and German with white classmates, graduating fluent in French and conversant in German — despite racism and ostracism from some classmates.
• A mentor: John P. Parker, a Black entrepreneur and abolitionist who helped nearly 1,000 enslaved people escape through Ripley's Underground Railroad, recruited Gabriel into the army, and opened his home library to Charles, who went to school with Parker's daughter Hortense.

Teacher

• Graduation: Young graduated from Ripley High School in 1881, at 17, with honors. At the integrated ceremony on June 2, 1881, at the Third Street Baptist Church, each of the 21 graduates gave an essay; his was "Let There Be Light."
• Teaching: he taught for three years at Ripley's Black school, and in his first year presented "We Must Educate" to the integrated Ripley Union school staff.
• 1883: he earned a three-year teaching certificate and became acting superintendent of Ripley's Black schools.

West Point

Also in 1883, Young took the U.S. Military Academy exam in Hillsboro, Ohio, placing second behind William A. Stamats, who went to West Point that summer. When Stamats resigned on January 8, 1884, Young was offered his place and entered West Point in summer 1884.

Further reading: Black Cadet in a White Bastion: Charles Young at West Point, by historian Brian G. Shellum.

Sources

Based on "Charles Young's Early Life: 1864 to 1884," Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The nineteenth-century photographs are held by the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center.