I 
114TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 4421 
To award a Congressional Gold Medal to Colonel Charles Young, in recogni-
tion of his pioneering career in the United States Army during exception-
ally challenging times. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
FEBRUARY 1, 2016 
Mr. RANGEL introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on Financial Services 
A BILL 
To award a Congressional Gold Medal to Colonel Charles 
Young, in recognition of his pioneering career in the 
United States Army during exceptionally challenging 
times. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Colonel Charles Young 
Congressional Gold Medal Act’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) Colonel Charles Young was— 
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(A) a distinguished African-American offi-
cer in the United States Army; 
(B) the third African-American to grad-
uate from West Point; 
(C) a commander of troops in combat in— 
(i) the Spanish-American War; and 
(ii) the Mexican Punitive Expedition 
against Pancho Villa; 
(D) the first Black United States military 
attache´ to a foreign government; and 
(E) the highest ranking Black Officer in 
the United States Armed Forces at the out-
break of World War I. 
(2) Charles Young was born in 1864 into slav-
ery to Gabriel Young and Arminta Bruen in Mays 
Lick, Kentucky, a small town near Maysville. 
(3) Following West Point, Young began his 
service with the Ninth Cavalry in the American 
West. From 1889 to 1890 he served at Fort Robin-
son, Nebraska, and from 1890 to 1894 at Fort 
Duchesne, Utah. 
(4) In 1894, Lieutenant Young was assigned to 
Wilberforce College in Ohio, a historically black col-
lege (HBCU), to lead the new military sciences de-
partment, established under a special Federal grant. 
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(5) As the commander of an Army unit as-
signed to protect and develop Sequoia National Park 
and General Grant National Park in the State of 
California, Colonel Young is recognized as the first 
African-American to be the Superintendent of a Na-
tional Park. 
(6) During his 32 years of honorable military 
service, Colonel Young proved to be a valuable asset 
in the field of military intelligence. 
(7) With the Army’s founding of the Military 
Intelligence Department, in 1904 it assigned Young 
as one of the first military attache´s, serving in Port- 
au-Prince, Haiti. 
(8) In 1908 Young was sent to the Philippines 
to join his Ninth Regiment and command a squad-
ron of two troops. It was his second tour there. 
After his return to the United States, he served for 
2 years at Fort D.A. Russell, Wyoming. 
(9) In 1912 Young was assigned as the military 
attache´ to Liberia, the first African-American to 
hold that post. For 3 years, he served as an expert 
adviser to the Liberian government and also took a 
direct role, supervising construction of the country’s 
infrastructure. 
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(10) In 1912 Young published The Military 
Morale of Nations and Races, a remarkably pre-
scient study of the cultural sources of military 
power. 
(11) During the 1916 Punitive Expedition by 
the United States into Mexico, then-Major Young 
commanded the 2nd squadron of the 10th United 
States Cavalry. While leading a cavalry pistol charge 
against Pancho Villa’s forces at Agua Caliente, he 
routed the opposing forces without losing a single 
man. 
(12) Because of his exceptional leadership of 
the 10th Cavalry in the Mexican theater of war, 
Young was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in Sep-
tember 1916. He was assigned as commander of 
Fort Huachuca, the base in Arizona of the Tenth 
Cavalry, nicknamed the ‘‘Buffalo Soldiers’’, until 
mid-1917. He was the first African-American to 
achieve the rank of colonel in the United States 
Army. 
SEC. 3. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL. 
(a) PRESENTATION AUTHORIZED.—The Speaker of 
the House of Representatives and the President pro tem-
pore of the Senate shall make appropriate arrangements 
for the presentation, on behalf of the Congress, of a gold 
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medal of appropriate design to Colonel Charles Young, in 
recognition of his pioneering career in the United States 
Army during exceptionally challenging times. 
(b) DESIGN AND STRIKING.—For the purposes of the 
award referred to in subsection (a), the Secretary of the 
Treasury (hereafter in this Act referred to as the ‘‘Sec-
retary’’) shall strike a gold medal with suitable emblems, 
devices, and inscriptions, to be determined by the Sec-
retary. 
(c) NATIONAL AFRO-AMERICAN MUSEUM AND CUL-
TURAL CENTER.— 
(1) IN GENERAL.—Following the award of the 
gold medal under subsection (a), the gold medal 
shall be given to the National Afro-American Mu-
seum and Cultural Center in Wilberforce, Ohio, 
where it shall be available for display as appropriate 
and made available for research. 
(2) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of 
Congress that the National Afro-American Museum 
and Cultural Center should make the gold medal re-
ceived under paragraph (1) available for display or 
for loan as appropriate so that it may be displayed 
elsewhere, particularly at other appropriate locations 
associated with the life of Colonel Charles Young. 
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SEC. 4. DUPLICATE MEDALS. 
The Secretary may strike and sell duplicates in 
bronze of the gold medal struck pursuant to section 3 
under such regulations as the Secretary may prescribe, at 
a price sufficient to cover the cost thereof, including labor, 
materials, dies, use of machinery, and overhead expenses, 
and the cost of the gold medal. 
SEC. 5. NATIONAL MEDALS. 
Medals struck pursuant to this Act are national med-
als for the purposes of chapter 51 of title 31, United 
States Code. 
Æ 
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