By: Charles Blatcher, III
Chairman, National Coalition of Black Veteran Organizations
The National Park Service in partnership with the Camp Nelson Preservation and Education Foundation, National Coalition of Black Veteran Organizations, Kentucky Center for African American Heritage, Jessamine County Public Library, Jessamine County Tourism, Huntertown Community Interpretive Park, and the Kentucky Historical Society, announces the 1st Annual Freedom Day Festival. The event will be held from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm on Saturday, June 21, 2025 at the Camp Nelson National Monument located in Nicholasville, Kentucky.
The special event commemorates the Brigadier General Charles Young Memorial Historical Corridor—the 170-mile route from Camp Nelson National Monument in Jessamine County to Mays Lick—and concludes at the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument in Wilberforce, Ohio. Born to enslaved parents in 1864 in Mays Lick, Kentucky, Young became the third African American to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point; the first African American superintendent of a national park; and the highest ranking African American U.S. Army officer at the time of his death in 1922. Charles Young was posthumously promoted to the rank of brigadier general in the Regular Army on February 1, 2022, at the behest of the National Coalition of Black Veterans and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear.
Among the special items to be displayed at the event is a bronze maquette of Brigadier General Charles Young on horseback. The statuette, placed on temporary loan to Camp Nelson by the Veterans Coalition is a replica of the statue the organization is proposing to establish on the grounds of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. The statue created by sculptor Antonio Tobias Mendez will be on display for thirty days after-which it will be returned to the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage in Louisville. The festival features live music featuring The Marshall Law Band, food trucks, arts and crafts, children’s activities, guided talks and walks, and a keynote presentation by sculptor Ed Hamilton, creator of the Spirit of Freedom African American Civil War Monument in Washington DC. It is free and open to the public. Limited free bus transportation will be available from the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage in Louisville located at 1701 Muhammad Ali Blvd. Sign-up now to reserve a seat. For more information, please see the flyer below:
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contact: cnmmmf@aol.com
