After 100 Years, Young and Booker T. Get Recognition

Sequoia

Story and Photo’s by Cheryl Brown

After 100 years of being lost in the woods, the Booker T. Washington Tree was rededicated in the Sequoia National Park with family members looking on as a permanent marker was unveiled replacing the long forgotten sign that hung on the tree 100 years ago.

The August 23 rededication was a part of the commemoration of the 100-year memorial of Captain (later promoted to Colonel) Charles Young’s tenure at heading up the park. He was the third African American to graduate from West Point, and the first African American to head up a National Park. It is reported that as the third superintendent he did more to advance the park than the three Superintendents before him.

Don Murphy, National Parks Deputy Director, said in his keynote to a group of invited guests and park attendees, “This is the best idea America has ever had. The park preserved for this and future generations.” He said that the Sequoia National Park is preserved because of people like Young. He also said the people of America own the National Parks. “We try to tell a fair and balanced story. We have a common heritage that motivates all of us,” he said.

He announced that he also authorized Superintendent Martin to find a suitable tree to name after Col. Young. The practice has not been done for years and is highly unusual.

Young was born into slavery in Kentucky during the Civil War. After the war his parents moved him across the Ohio River to Ripley, Ohio where he graduated from the all White high school, the first Black to do so. Through a competitive exam he won an appointment to WestPoint of which he later said that the worst he could wish for an enemy would be to make him Black and send him to WestPoint. It was a very painful episode in his life.

Young and his Buffalo Soldiers completed the road that leads to the big trees. He also completed the road that went to Mt McKinley, the highest mountain in North America. He deployed his men to guard the various entrances to the park. Before Young’s arrival sheepherders were ravaging the mountain’s meadows. Somewhere up in the area of 200,000 sheep grazed there.

He posted the law and then said, “the laws are well posted and they must be obeyed while I am guarding the park.” The work of Young and his men is well documented. There are detailed maps of his work on file in the Park Service records. He oversaw the road being completed to the big trees and wagons the big trees for the first time. It soon extended the road to the base of the famous Moro Rock.

Records reflect a Riverside Congressman Milton J. Daniels and the Visalia Board of Trade visited him on a weeklong tour of the Giant Forest and to celebrate his accomplishments. He had become an important figure in the San Francisco and Central California areas because of his tenure at the Presidio and the Sequoias.

Upon completion of the work his men gave him the honor to have a tree named in his honor but Young deferred saying there was another who should be honored, Booker T. Washington. He was against the practice of naming trees while he was Superintendent.

He only allowed the naming of three trees, one for the Odd Fellows, the Grand Army of the Republic and Booker T. The sign was nailed to the tree and decades passed. In 2001 while the Park Service was planning the celebration, they called Floyd Thomas, a historian dedicated to Young’s life and staff member of the Afro American Museum, in Wilberforce, OH. He mentioned the tree and faxed a photo of it the same day.

The Park Service had no information about it and they sent technician Ward Eldredge out to find it. The daunting task was made easier when Park Historian Bill Tweed, instructed staff to look near the roads Young built. There it was in all of its majesty, a closer look revealed the nail still in the tree a lot higher from the growth but still there.

Why the Booker T. name? According to historian/author, Dr. Rudolph Lapp, his research revealed that Young and Washington had lunch together a day before he was to leave California to return to Tuskegee in January of 1903. “Young had such a good visit with him and he was so impressed by him, it stayed with him and it is probably why he named the tree for him,” said Lapp in a telephone interview with Black Voice News. Lapp has written a book on Washington’s trip to California in 1903.

The Department Defense was there, as were the descendants of Young and Washington. The Defense Department’s historians were there to pay respect to the memory of Young who was the first Black Attaché. He was sent to Haiti, Liberia and Nigeria where he died.

Young’s great granddaughter, Cheryl Dawson of Los Angeles summed up what others said, “I was so moved,” she said in a telephone interview. “The historical importance of what he (Young) stood for has been overlooked the last century. I’m honored to bring forth his legacy in a way that does him honor,” she said. Shirley Gordon, Young’s great great granddaughter lives in Lancaster, and calls her experience “absolutely amazing.” Other local descendants live in Corona, Dennis Russell and his family was left speechless. They were so very pleased with the honor.

While the Young family basked in the glow of history the Washington family was also affected. They have received various acknowledgements of their famous grandfather and great grandfather but this one was somehow very different. Not much is known about Booker T.’s travels on the west coast but he has family here: one granddaughter lives in Los Angeles, one of his great grandson is head of the southern region of the California State Parks while others live in northern California.

The family spokesperson Margaret Clifford from Atlanta, was still on fire two weeks after the event. “We think Booker T. was truly amazing in his expansive travels. The family enjoyed the fellowship, meeting the Young family and the experience,” she said.

There were talks by Tim Sinclair, from the Booker T. Washington National Monument, located in Virginia, and Rodney Reynolds, who did not bite his tongue when he talked about the history of our country. Reynolds is publisher of American Legacy Magazine, the country’s premier magazine of African American history and culture.

The all day’s activities included, a Buffalo Soldiers encampment, Col. Young exhibit, living history with Ranger Shelton Johnson and several other events that recognized the work of Young.

Young left the park after only four months and went to the Philippines. He met his wife Alba Mills who came from Grass Valley near Yuba City, Ca. Young was so angry when it came his time to command a White troop and he was voluntarily retired, he mounted his horse and road the 497 miles to Washington, DC to prove them wrong.

He died in Nigeria and his wife petitioned and brought him home. 50,000 people came out on the streets of Manhattan. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, where 60,000 mourners attended his service there.