The National Coalition of Black Veterans Organizations extends our deepest gratitude for your decades of dedicated service to our nation. During your Presidential administration, you seized the opportunity to recognize the honorable service of then-Colonel Charles Young with a posthumous promotion to Brigadier General, a recognition that our coalition had pursued for more than forty years. In the aftermath of this distinguished honor, we collaborated with the states of Kentucky and Ohio to designate and unveil the BG Charles Young Memorial Historical Corridor. Spanning a 170-mile stretch, the corridor includes more than ten historically Black locations, starting in Nicholasville, Kentucky, and concluding in Wilberforce, Ohio. This corridor is a crucial component of an economic development project aimed at fostering educational tourism in the region. Governor Andy Beshear has been a steadfast supporter, and the Kentucky Tourism, Arts, and Heritage Cabinet has provided financial assistance – see the attached magazine for more details.
Beyond promoting the region, one remaining goal in Kentucky is to ensure the preservation of BG Young’s birth cabin in Mays Lick. We joined the Mason County community in 2010 to restore this historic cabin, which was built in the mid-1790s. The cabin’s preservation is particularly vital to the success of our broader economic development project. With a change in administration anticipated in January, we have concerns about the project’s future. We respectfully request your intervention to secure its preservation before the end of your term, by using the Presidential Antiquities Act to bring the property into the National Trust. Placing the cabin under the National Park System’s management would ensure its preservation in perpetuity. We propose that this designation be achieved either as a standalone entity or as an appendage to the Camp Nelson (Nicholasville, KY) or the Charles Young and Buffalo Soldiers National Monument (Wilberforce, OH).
Once again, we thank you for your life of service and for honoring our nation’s hero with his posthumous promotion by the U.S. Department of Defense in November 2022. It was a privilege to celebrate Brigadier General Young’s promotion with his family members, United States military leaders and veterans, community leaders, and public officials in Kentucky the following February, and later at his promotion ceremony at the U.S. Military Academy West Point in April 2023.
Your favorable consideration of our request to use the Presidential Antiquities Act to bring this property into the National Trust would be deeply appreciated by all who have championed this project over the years. To all the brave men and women serving in the United States Military, and to our Veterans, Happy Veterans Day.
