Early Life and Education
Charles Young was born in 1864 into slavery to Gabriel Young and Arminta Bruen in May's Lick, Kentucky, a small village near Maysville, but he grew up a free person. His father Gabriel escaped from slavery in 1865, going across the Ohio River to Ripley, Ohio to enlist as a private in the Fifth Regiment of the Colored Artillery (Heavy) Volunteers during the American Civil War. Accounts differ as to whether he took his wife and child with him then. His service earned him and his wife freedom. As a young woman Arminta had learned to read and write, and may have had status as a house slave before becoming free.
After the war, the entire family migrated to Ripley in 1866, where the parents decided opportunities were better than in postwar Kentucky. Gabriel had earned a bonus by continuing to serve in the Army after the war and had a stake to buy land. As a youth, Charles Young attended the all-white high school in Ripley, the only one available. He graduated at age 16 at the top of his class. Following graduation, he taught school for a few years at the newly established black high school of Ripley.
Read more about this topic: Charles Young (United States Army)
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