The chairman of the National Coalition of Black Veterans is asking President Biden to bring the birthplace of a Mason County soldier into the National Trust. Charles Blatcher III said the president, with an assist from Governor Beshear, posthumously promoted Colonel Charles Young to brigadier general. Now he and others want the log cabin where Young was born in 1864 to be federally recognized.
“There's a waiting list that's probably about 300 or 400 properties long. And what we're asking President Biden to do is to step in and use the antiquities the Presidential Antiquities Act, to bring that cabin into the National Trust.”
Blatcher said the Young birthplace could be made an appendage of Camp Nelson or the Charles Young National Monument in Ohio, where Young grew up. The cabin was restored in 2010 with the assistance of Mason County leaders.
“It's all been necessary in the educational process, and we still have a ways to go. And I'm just as optimistic today that we will complete what we started as I was the first day we started this, because I honestly believe, and there's many other people that believe, it's the right thing to do.”
Blatcher said his organization has worked with officials in Kentucky and Ohio on the Brigadier General Charles Young Memorial Corridor, which has more than 10 historic Black sites along 170 miles.
Brigadier General Charles Young Historical Memorial Corridor
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