Anna Pauli Murray, Col. James Young, John Merrick, John Chavis (select to enlarge)
Colonel James H. Young (1860-1921)
Young was an African American
politician in North
Carolina. Young was born in 1860 near Henderson,
North Carolina to a slave
woman and a prominent white man. Educated at Shaw University, Young was
hired to work in the office of Colonel J. J. Young, an internal
revenue collector, in 1877, and became involved with the Republican
Party. In 1883, Young was elected to the Raleigh
board of aldermen, but the board, controlled by Democrats, had Young and three
other black Republicans removed from office because they held federal
government jobs.
President Benjamin Harrison
nominated Young twice for the position of Collector of the Port of Wilmington
but the U.S. Senate failed to confirm him.
As owner and editor of the Raleigh
Gazette (then "the most popular black newspaper in the Piedmont region of
North Carolina")
from 1893 to 1898, Young helped organize the electoral fusion of the
state's Republicans and Populists.
He was elected to the North
Carolina House of Representatives from Wake County on a Fusion
ticket in 1894 and 1896. Historian Helen G. Edmonds called Young "the
outstanding Negro in the state legislature during the Fusion period." He
was vilified by the Democrats, who nevertheless acknowledged his intellect and
political astuteness, which they attributed "to his white blood."
Young was an ally of Gov. Daniel L. Russell, who
appointed him colonel
of a black volunteer regiment organized for the Spanish-American
War. The unit did not see action, but Young was believed to have
been the first African American to hold the rank of colonel in the United
States (Charles Young
was the first black colonel in the regular United States Army).
Young later received a federal appointment from Pres. William McKinley as deputy
revenue collector for Raleigh, which he held from 1899 through 1913. He was
also active in the Baptist
church.
Posts
