Major Charles Young in 1916

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He was the 3rd African-American to graduate from West Point, 1st black U.S. National Park superintendent, 1st black man to become Colonel. After being denied promotion he rode on horseback from Wilberforce, Ohio, to Washington, D.C. to disprove rumors of his poor health.

Charles Young was born to Gabriel and Arminta Young on March 12th, 1864 in May's Lick, Mason County, Kentucky. The United States was still split during the Civil War. Both of Charles' parents were enslaved.

In 1884, Charles Young entered West Point as part of the Class of 1888. Young was only the ninth African American admitted to the prestigious military academy:

Although regularly discriminated against, Young did make several lifelong friends among his later classmates, but none among his initial class. He had to repeat his first year when he failed mathematics. 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.

With the United States about to enter World War I, Young stood a good chance of being promoted to brigadier general. However, there was widespread resistance among white officers, especially those from the segregated South, who did not want to be outranked by an African American. A lieutenant who served under Young complained to the War Department, and Secretary of War Newton Baker replied that he should "either do his duty or resign." John Sharp Williams, senator from Mississippi, complained on the lieutenant's behalf to President Woodrow Wilson. The President overruled Baker's decision and had the lieutenant transferred. (In 1913, Southern-born Wilson had segregated federal offices and established discrimination in other ways.)

Baker considered sending Young to Fort Des Moines, an officer training camp for African Americans. However, Baker realized that if Young were allowed to fight in Europe with black troops under his command, he would be eligible for promotion to brigadier general, and it would be impossible not to have white officers serving under him. The War Department instead removed Young from active duty, claiming it was due to his high blood pressure. Young was placed temporarily on the inactive list (with the rank of colonel) on June 22, 1917.

In May 1917 Young appealed to Theodore Roosevelt for support of his application for reinstatement. Roosevelt was then in the midst of his campaign to form a "volunteer division" for early service in France in World War I. Roosevelt appears to have planned to recruit at least one and perhaps two black regiments for the division, something he had not told President Wilson or Secretary of War Baker. He immediately wrote to Young offering him command of one of the prospective regiments, saying "there is not another man [besides yourself] who would be better fitted to command such a regiment." Roosevelt also promised Young carte blanche in appointing staff and line officers for the unit. However, Wilson refused Roosevelt permission to organize his volunteer division.

Young returned to Wilberforce University, where he was a professor of military science through most of 1918. On November 6, 1918, after he had traveled by horseback from Wilberforce, Ohio, to Washington, D.C. to prove his physical fitness, he was reinstated on active duty as a colonel. Baker did not rescind his order that Young be forcibly retired. In 1919, Young was reassigned as military attaché to Liberia.

While Young was on a reconnaissance mission in Nigeria in late 1921, he suddenly became devastatingly ill. Young died of a kidney infection at the British hospital in Lagos on January 8, 1922. Because his death took place in a British hospital, his body was required to be buried in Lagos where it remained for an entire year. During that year, Young's wife and many notable African Americans at the time demanded that Young's body be brought back from Nigeria so that he could receive “a proper military burial.” More than a year after his death, Charles Young's body was finally exhumed and brought back to American soil. When his body finally made it to New York, he received a hero's welcome. There were large crowds of people there, all to pay honor to Young's long and accomplished military career.

Read more about him on Wikipedia