Born in slavery, Charles Young (1864 1922) was the third black graduate of West Point, the first black U.S. military attache, and the highest-ranking black officer in the Regular Army until his death. Unlike the two black graduates before him, Young went on to a long military career, eventually achieving the rank of colonel. After Young, racial intolerance closed the door to blacks at the academy, and forty-seven years passed before another African American graduated from West Point.

Brian G. Shellum s biography of Young s years at West Point chronicles the enormous challenges that Young...

An unheralded military hero, Charles Young (1864 1922) was the third black graduate of West Point, the first African American national park superintendent, the first black U.S. military attache, the first African American officer to command a Regular Army regiment, and the highest-ranking black officer in the Regular Army until his death. Black Officer in a Buffalo Soldier Regiment tells the story of the man who willingly or not served as a standard-bearer for his race in the officer corps for nearly thirty years, and who, if not for racial prejudice, would have become the first...