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DESCRIPTION:Meet and Greet to prepare for the Dedication Ceremony of the Colonel 
 Charles Young Memorial Highway\n\nRelease of the National Buffalo Soldiers 
 Study \n\nBlack Officer's Park Role Honored \nBy Fahizah Alim\n\nCourtesy 
 of Sacramento Bee\nMarch 2004 \n\nThe massive trees of Sequoia National 
 Park are so imposing and impressive that over the years, people have been 
 compelled to give them names. These giants - the largest sequoia is more 
 than 100 feet in circumference at the base and 275 feet tall - are named 
 after great generals, national organizations, even a president.\n\nThanks 
 to the efforts of a Sacramento man, this summer another massive sequoia 
 will be named after an eminent American: Colonel Charles Young, the son of 
 slaves who became the first African American to become the superintendent 
 of a national park.\n\nIn 1903, Young, then a captain leading the U.S. 
 Army's all-black 9th Cavalry - the famed "buffalo soldiers" - played a 
 critical role in helping preserve the groves of Sequoia and making them 
 accessible to the millions of people who visit the park in the southern 
 Sierra Nevada each year.\n\nUntil recently, the contributions of Young, who 
 in 1889 became only the third African American to graduate with a 
 commission from West Point, had been largely overlooked. That has changed 
 thanks to George Palmer, who began a letter-writing campaign to gain Young 
 a place in history books.\n\n"It's important to know about this man," 
 Palmer says, "not only because of his service to this country and his role 
 in the development of this park, but also because his environmental 
 attitude was far ahead of his time."\n\nPalmer, a retired San Francisco 
 sheriff's captain who moved to Sacramento three years ago, says Young's 
 legacy deserves to be preserved.  "When I found out about the contributions 
 that Colonel Young had made, I couldn't allow them to continue to be 
 ignored," he says.\n\n"One of my former teachers told me, 'If they haven't 
 recognized him in 100 years, what makes you think they are going to do it 
 now?' I said, 'Because I'm not going to quit until it's done.'"  Longtime 
 park enthusiasts, Palmer and his wife have visited a national park or a 
 national monument every year since 1969.\n\nIn 1997, Palmer was 
 volunteering as a docent at Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park north 
 of Bakersfield, which preserves the only California town to be founded, 
 financed and governed by African Americans.  A teacher visiting the site 
 asked Palmer why a street in the state park was named after Charles Young. 
 Who was he?  "I had to sheepishly admit that I didn't know," Palmer 
 recalls.\n\nIn an encyclopedia, Palmer found a small item about Young that 
 placed him at West Point and mentioned that he had a role at some national 
 park, but not which one, Palmer says.  He did more research on Young in a 
 Visalia library.  He learned that in 1903, Young had been superintendent of 
 Sequoia National Park.\n\n"I drove to Sequoia to see what I could find 
 out," Palmer says. "I found that he had finished the road into the Giant 
 Forest and built the road to Moro Rock.  He put the first protective fence 
 around the General Sherman Tree and the General Grant Tree.\n\n"But when I 
 visited the park, it had no recognition in its museum of what Colonel Young 
 had contributed," he says.  Starting in 1998, Palmer wrote letters to 
 politicians and others requesting that funds be provided to give 
 recognition to Young and the 9th Cavalry for the work they 
 performed.\n\nBoth President Clinton and Senator Diane Feinstein responded 
 to his letters and said they had forwarded his requests to the National 
 Park Service for investigation.\n\nHowever, it wasn't until President Bush 
 visited the park in 2001 that things started moving.\n"I wrote him a 
 three-page letter telling him what he didn't see when he had visited the 
 park," Palmer says. "Nine months later, I got a letter from the National 
 Park Service, inviting me to sit down with them and help plan the 
 centennial celebration."\n\nFinally, in August 2003, 100 years after Young 
 and his buffalo soldiers rode into Sequoia National Park, the park service 
 unveiled a mural honoring Young and the 9th Cavalry.\nA ceremony was also 
 held to rededicate a tree that Young had named for African American 
 educator Booker T. Washington during the summer of 1903.  Eighteen of 
 Washington's descendants and 11 of Young's descendants were on hand for the 
 festivities, which included re-enactments of buffalo soldier camps and 
 activities.  Donald Murphy, deputy director of the National Park Service, 
 was among the keynote speakers.  \n\nSo was William Tweed, chief naturalist 
 for Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks.  "In one summer, Young and his 
 black soldiers succeeded in accomplishing more work in the park than had 
 been done in the three years prior," Tweed says.  "From 1891 to 1913, 
 troops of soldiers came to protect the park during the summer," he says. 
 "But the most significant year was 1903."\n\nIn addition to opening the 
 parks to public use, Tweed says, the troops focused on resource protection. 
 They curtailed illegal grazing in the mountain meadows. Recognizing the 
 damage being done to the sequoias by the trampling of tourists' feet, they 
 put the first fences around the most-abused trees.\n\n"What makes 1903 
 stand out is not only that so much was accomplished, but also ... that it 
 was accomplished by buffalo soldiers under Captain Young. ... Everything 
 Young did in life was to show people what African Americans could 
 accomplish," Tweed says.\n\nPalmer's research found that Young's 
 contributions extended far beyond his summer assignment in the 
 Sierra.\n\nDuring his 37 years of military service, Young served in the 
 Philippines, Haiti, Liberia and Mexico.  He died on a military mission in 
 Nigeria and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.\n\nClearly, Young 
 believed America was worth fighting for and its beauty worth preserving, 
 Palmer says.  Young's strong advocacy was evident from his comments in his 
 final official report upon completing his stint at Sequoia National 
 Park:\n\n"Indeed a journey through this park and the Sierra Forest Reserve 
 to Mount Whitney country will convince even the least thoughtful man of the 
 needfulness of preserving these mountains just as they are."\n\nColonel 
 Charles Young is remembered and honored as a man of unique courage and 
 inspiration. This was especially true for those of "goodwill", who knew 
 him, and for those who followed him into battle. He stands honored both as 
 an African-American and in the history of African-Americans in the U.S. 
 military.\n\nYoung was born March 12, 1864 to enslaved Pan Africans in the 
 little hamlet of Mays Lick, Kentucky.  He graduated from the U.S. Military 
 Academy at West Point in 1889.  This gave him the honor of being the third 
 African-American to do so, in spite of the hatred, bigotry and 
 discrimination he encountered as an undergraduate. \n\nHis first assignment 
 after graduation was with the Buffalo Soldiers in the 10th Cavalry in 
 Nebraska, and then in the 9th and 10th Cavalries in Utah.  With the 
 outbreak of the Spanish-American War, he was reassigned as Second 
 Lieutenant to training duty at Camp Algers, Virginia.\n\nYoung was then 
 awarded a commission as a Major in the Ninth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. 
 Later, during the Spanish-American War, he was in command of a squadron of 
 the 10th Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers in Cuba.\n\nAfter the war with Spain, 
 Young was reassigned to Fort Duchesne in Utah where he successfully 
 arbitrated a dispute between Native Americans and sheep herders. He also 
 met one of the many soldiers who would eventually benefit from his 
 encouragement, Sergeant Major Benjamin O. Davis. Later, Davis would became 
 General Benjamin O. Davis, the first African-American to reach the rank of 
 General in the U.S. Army.\n\nCharles Young distinguished himself throughout 
 his military career with the Buffalo Soldiers of the 9th and 10th 
 Cavalries, and the 25th Infantry.  He also served as Professor of Military 
 Science at Wilberforce University, Ohio.\n\nWith the creation of the army's 
 Military Information Division (MID), came his assignment as one of the 
 army's first military attachés, in Port Au Prince, Haiti.  His job was to 
 observe the training and exercises of foreign armies and make reports on 
 their relative strengths and weaknesses.  United States intelligence was 
 desperate for new maps and information about groups struggling for 
 political power in Haiti.  Young risked his life to fulfill his 
 assignments, only to have his maps and reports stolen and sold to the 
 Haitian government. \n\nIn 1903 Captain Young was in command of the 10th 
 Cavalry, who were segregated at the Presidio of San Francisco.  He was 
 assigned "Acting Superintendent" of Sequoia National Parks in California 
 for the summer.  The management of the park was the responsibility of the 
 army, which had very little Congressional funding. \n\nThis problem and the 
 fact that no "Acting Superintendent" of Sequoia National Parks ever stayed 
 at this assignment for more than two consecutive summers resulted in the 
 construction of less than five miles of roads within the park. The lack of 
 a wagon road severely limited the number for people who visited the Giant 
 Forest of Redwoods, which are the largest trees in the world. \n\nYoung and 
 his troopers arrived in Sequoia after a 16-day ride.  Their first priority 
 was the extension of the wagon road.  As always, Young's aggressive style 
 of leadership, produced results.  A road longer than all previous roads 
 combined was produced, ending at the base of Moro Rock.  This opened up the 
 park to a the public who was clamoring to experience Sequoia National 
 Parks.  Soon wagons and automobiles were winding their way to the 
 mountain-top forest for the first time.\n\nYoung was sent to the 
 Philippines to join his 9th regiment and command a squadron of two troops 
 in 1908.  Four years later he was once again selected for Military Attaché 
 duty, this time to Liberia.  For his service as adviser to the Liberian 
 Government and his supervision of the building of the country's 
 infrastructure, he was awarded the Springarn Medal, an award that annually 
 recognized the African-American who had made the highest achievement during 
 the year in any field of honorable human endeavor.\n\nDuring the 1916 
 Pershing's Punitive Expedition into Mexico, Young was praised for his 
 leadership in the pursuit of the bandit Pancho Villa, who had murdered 
 American citizens. Commanding a squadron of the 10th United States Cavalry, 
 he led a cavalry pistol charge against the Villista forces, routing the 
 opposing forces without losing a single man. The swift action saved the 
 wounded General Beltran and his men, who had been outflanked.\nOn another 
 occasion, Young was credited with averting disaster when he and his men 
 came to the relief of the 13th U.S. Cavalry squadron who were fighting a 
 heavy rear guard action.\nBecause of his exceptional leadership of the 10th 
 Cavalry in the Mexican theater of war, he was promoted to Lieutenant 
 Colonel and was briefly Fort Huachuca's commander in Texas.\n\nYoung was 
 devoted to his wife Ada and their two children; son, Charles Jr. and 
 daughter Marie.  He was sure to have played the piano, and at least a few 
 of his compositions, when he was home between assignments.  Being 
 versatile, he also played the violin and guitar. Linguistically, he spoke 
 several languages. \nColonel Charles Young was the highest ranking 
 African-American officer in the army when WW1 started.  He was also the 
 first African-American to reach that rank in the army. \nWith the explosive 
 arrival of WWI, the public, and especially African-Americans considered the 
 possibility of Young receiving a major leadership role in the war.  \n\nHe 
 had met challenges of racism, bigotry, and discrimination embedded within 
 society and within the military.  He had shown himself to be exceptional, 
 not only as an military officer, but also as a leader of men.  But justice 
 and the rule of equality in the military were not for Lt. Colonel Charles 
 Young. \n\n\nWhen he took his scheduled army physical, the doctors said his 
 blood pressure was too high. Young and his comrades, his supporters, and 
 the African-American news media believed otherwise. On June 22, 1917, Young 
 was retired, under protest. \n\nOn a day in June, 1918 retired Lt. Colonel 
 Charles Young, made his way on horseback, 500 miles from Wilberforce, Ohio 
 to this nation's capital, to show he was as always, fit for duty. There, he 
 petitioned the Secretary of War (now called Secretary of Defense) for 
 immediate reinstatement and command of a combat unit in Europe.  The ride 
 from Ohio to Washington D.C. brought bittersweet results.  Young was 
 reinstated and promoted to full Colonel, but he was assigned to duty at 
 Camp Grant, Illinois.  By the time his reinstatement and promotion were in 
 effect the war was near its end.\n\nToo weak to command in France they 
 said, but not too weak to traverse and suffer the swamps of West Africa, 
 Colonel Charles Young, was once again, assigned to Liberia as Military 
 Attaché.  He died at that post on January 8, 1922, while on a research 
 expedition in Lagos, Nigeria.\n\nColonel Charles Young's funeral service 
 was one of the few ever held at the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington 
 National Cemetery.  He is buried in Section 3 of the cemetery.\n\nToday, 
 Colonel Charles Young's home is scheduled to become the future site of the 
 National Museum of African American Military History.  Its unique history 
 relives the days when it was a way station for the Underground 
 Railroad.\n\n https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2019/11/07/18827931.php
SUMMARY:California Buffalo Soldiers Project ~ 2019 National Buffalo Soldiers Study Celebration
LOCATION:Three Rivers Historical Society and Museum\n42268 Sierra Dr. \nThree 
 Rivers, CA  93271\n
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2019/11/07/18827931.php
DTSTART:20191111T000000Z
DTEND:20191111T020000Z
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