By: Charles Blatcher, III, Chairman, National Coalition of Black Veteran Organizations- Veteran’s Day, Release November 10th, 2024
Open Letter to President Joseph Biden:
Primarily, the National Coalition of Black Veterans Organizations thanks you for your decades of dedicated service to our nation. Specifically, 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 began to pursue more than forty years earlier. In the aftermath of your bestowing this honor, we worked with the states of Kentucky and Ohio to designate and unveil the BG Charles Young Memorial Historical Corridor. Encompassing a 170-mile stretch, the corridor boasts more than ten historically Black locations, beginning in Nicholasville, Kentucky and ending in Wilberforce, Ohio. The corridor is an important part of the economic development project we are engaged in promoting educational tourism to the region. Governor Andy Beshear has been a staunch supporter, and the Kentucky Tourism, Arts, and Heritage Cabinet are financially assisting – see the attached magazine.
Beyond promoting the region, we have a single task remaining in Kentucky, which is to ensure the preservation of BG Young’s birth cabin in Mays Lick. We joined with the Mason County community in 2010 to restore the cabin, which was built in the mid 1790’s. The cabin is a particularly vital component to the overall success of the economic development project. With the change in the administration coming in January, we have concerns about the fate of the project. We would appreciate your intervention in securing its fate prior to sunsetting your watch 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 into perpetuity. We suggest this designation be accomplished as a standalone entity or by appendage to the Camp Nelson (Nicholasville, KY or the Charles Young and Buffalo Soldiers National Monument (Wilberforce, OH).
We thank you again for your life in service and honoring our nation’s hero with his posthumous promotion, by the U.S. Department of Defense, in November 2022. It was an honor to celebrate Brigadier General Young’s promotion the following February with his family members, Kentucky; United States military leaders and veterans; community leaders, and public officials, as well as his promotion ceremony at the US Military Academy West Point, in April 2023.
Your favorable consideration using the Presidential Antiquities Act to bring the property into the National Trust is sought and would be deeply appreciated by all who have championed this project over the years…]
And to all the brave young men and women serving in the United States Military, and Veterans, Happy Veteran’s Day.
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