Wordless Wednesday: Nigeria Independence Day

OURstory: Colonel Charles Young (1864-1922)

One of most courageous African Americans in the history of the U.S. military was Colonel Charles Young. I'm pleased to see that a saber owned by Col. Young was included in the America I AM exhibit at the Cincinnati Museum Center a few years ago.

Young was born March 12, 1864 to ex-slaves in Mayslick, Kentucky. His family moved to Ripley, Ohio, where he attended high school. After he graduated he taught in the Black high school in Ripley. Young was a professor at Wilberforce University. His house near Wilberforce is a National Historic Landmark.

He was the third African American to graduate from West Point in 1889. He graduated in spite of the hatred, bigotry and discrimination he encountered as an undergraduate.

His first assignment after graduation was with the Buffalo Soldiers in the 10th Cavalry in Nebraska, and then in the 9th and 10th Cavalries in Utah.

Young was then awarded a commission as a Major in the Ninth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Later, during the Spanish-American War, he was in command of a squadron of the 10th Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers in Cuba.

After the war with Spain, Young was reassigned to Fort Duchesne in Utah where he encouraged Sergeant Major Benjamin O. Davis ... who later became the first African American to reach the rank of Army General.

In 1903 Captain Young was in command of the 10th Cavalry, who were segregated at the Presidio of San Francisco. He was assigned as the acting superintendent of Sequoia National Parks. During his supervisory tenure his troops built a road longer than all previous roads combined. Soon wagons and automobiles were winding their way to the mountain-top forest for the first time.

Young was sent to the Philippines to join his 9th regiment and command a squadron of two troops in 1908. Four years later he was once again selected for Military Attaché duty, this time to Liberia. For his service as adviser to the Liberian Government and his supervision of the building of the country's infrastructure, he was awarded the NAACP Springarn Medal.

Because of his exceptional leadership of the 10th Cavalry in the Mexican theater of war, he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and was briefly Fort Huachuca's commander in Texas.

Young was devoted to his wife Ada and their two children; son, Charles Jr. and daughter Marie. He was a renaissance man who played several instruments (piano, violin and guitar) and spoke several languages.

Colonel Charles Young was the highest ranking African American officer in the army when World War I started.

With the explosive arrival of WW1, the public, and especially African Americans considered the possibility of Young receiving a major leadership role in the war. He had met challenges of racism, bigotry, and discrimination embedded within society and within the military. He had shown himself to be exceptional, not only as an military officer, but also as a leader of men.

But justice and the rule of equality in the military were not for Lt. Colonel Charles Young. When he took his scheduled army physical, the doctors said his blood pressure was too high. Young and his comrades, his supporters, and the African American news media believed otherwise. On June 22, 1917, Young was retired, under protest.

The forced retirement didn't sit well with Lt. Col. Young. In June 1918 he made his way on horseback ... over 500 miles ... from Wilberforce OH to Washington DC to demonstrate that he was fit for duty. Once in DC, he asked the military for immediate reinstatement and command of a combat unit in Europe. Young was reinstated and promoted to full Colonel.

Col. Young, was assigned to Liberia as Military Attaché. He died at that post on January 8, 1922, while on a research expedition in Lagos, Nigeria.

Gates slams African Leaders Over Vaccine Coverage

Microsoft founder Bill Gates says some African countries are failing to deliver life-saving vaccines to children, hampering billion-dollar efforts to save millions of lives and stamp out deadly diseases.

Once you have vaccines invented and manufactured at low cost, and rich donors paying for them, "you have to have developing countries act to take the vaccines and get them out to all the kids."

Gates' message: Technology is only as effective as the leaders delivering it.

"It is tragic when the last delivery piece holds it back. You have some countries, northern Nigeria, or Chad or the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) where less than half the kids right now are getting the vaccines," he said, referring to polio immunization in those countries.

Read the full AFP article.

Good News Tuesday: Every Child is a Genius

Soulclap to The Black Star Project for bringing us this remarkable story of Paula and Peter Imafidon. The information about these two remarkable nubian young people was published in article written by Ruth Manuel-Logan.

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Paula and Peter Imafidon are just like any other 9-year-olds. They love laughing, playing on the computer and fighting with each other. What sets these twins apart from their peers, though, is that they are, hands down, prodigies who are about to enter high school and make British history as the youngest to do so.


The precocious London-based tykes, known as the "Wonder Twins," floored academics a year ago when they aced University of Cambridge's advanced mathematics exam. They are the youngest students to ever pass the test.

The future little scholars' father, Chris, and mother, Ann, immigrated to Britain from Nigeria more than 30 years ago and have actually been down this prodigy route before with their three older children, who are also overachievers.

The couple's oldest daughter, Anne-Marie , is now 20, but at age 13, she won a British government scholarship to take undergraduate courses at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Christiana, 17, their other daughter, is the youngest student ever to study at the undergraduate level in any British University at the age of 11. Youngest daughter, Samantha, now 12, passed two rigorous high school level mathematics and statistics exams at the age of 6. She mentored the twins to pass their own math secondary school test when they were also 6.

Even with all of this, the proud dad denies that there is any particular genius in his family. He does credit his children's success to the Excellence in Education program for disadvantaged inner-city youth.

"Every child is a genius," he said. "Once you identify the talent of a child and put them in the environment that will nurture that talent, then the sky is the limit. Look at Tiger Woods or the Williams sisters -- they were nurtured. You can never rule anything out with them. The competition between the two of them makes them excel in anything they do."

The darling duo are competitive to say the least, and this is what fuels them to out-achieve each other. Paula said, "I am excited to pass, but I should have got higher than Peter."

As far as career paths Paula says she wants to be a math teacher, while Peter aspires to be prime minister one day.

All it takes is a dream...

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This blog plans to share some good news about people of African descent each and every Tuesday. You can help ... let me know if you see a good news story that you think would inspire our Villagers!

TEDGlobal 2007: Africa on the Move

I have a colleague who created a list of 100 things that she wanted to do before she died. She had things like "paddle down the Amazon river" and "walk along the Great Wall in China" on her list. I never created such a list. However, if I did ... then today I would be adding "Attend a TEDGlobal Conference" to my list. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Earlier this month, TEDGlobal 2007 was held in Arusha, Tanzania.

Having a conference in Alkebulan ... our motherland ... is invigorating in and of itself. Africa is a country at a crossroads. Its problems and challenges are well known. Less well known is that across the continent, change is afoot. Instead of relying only on development aid, Africans across the continent are beginning to take matters into their own hands. Ingenious solutions are being applied to tackle some of the toughest health and infrastructure problems. Brother Benin Mwangi regularly informs us that businesses are being launched that are capable of transforming the lives of millions. BDPA devotes an entire online community to Alkebulan. New communication technologies are allowing ideas and information to spread, enabling markets — and governments — to be more efficient. And the numbers suggest that incomes are starting to nudge up in some countries and real growth is on the way. A new Africa beckons.

I have posted recently about the genocide in Darfur. It is easy to find negative images of Africa dominating the news: famine and disease, conflict and corruption.

But Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former Finance Minister of Nigeria, says there's a less-told story unfolding in many African nations: one of reform, economic growth and business opportunity. Cracking down on corruption -- and the perception of corruption -- will be the key to its success She tells how high-ranking Nigerian officials taking money illicitly have been jailed, and how citizens and prospective business partners are getting at least a partial picture now of where money flows.

I highly encourage 'villagers' to take some time to watch her comments as shared earlier this month with the TEDGlobal attendees.





I would be very interested in your take on Okonjo-Iweala's comments or the TEDGlobal conference. What say u?