Black Cats Group

This photograph is the only known image of the "Black Cats," or the men of Beta Kappa Sigma at Wilberforce University. The "Black Cat Club" was a club with the purpose of fostering good times among the members. The members met at various places, usually in an attic room of some member. While never officially incorporated or recognized by the university, it was a forerunner to fraternities that later established chapters at Wilberforce University.

One of the men in the photograph is Charles Young, who later became an army officer, expert mapmaker, and musician. Charles Young is the second person from the left, in the second row from the front. Young (1864-1922), a Kentucky native raised in Ohio, graduated from Ripley Colored High School in 1880. He won appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1884 and in 1889 became the third African American graduate from the school. Young taught military science at Wilberforce University and later served in the Spanish American War as the major in command of the 9th Ohio Volunteer Infantry (O.V.I.). He had an exceptional military career, highlighted by his appointments to serve as military attache to Haiti and Liberia. He commanded troops in the "Punitive Expedition" in Mexico, and during the "Filipino Insurrection." He was also superintendent of Sequoia and General Grant national parks. At the outset of World War I, Young was the highest-ranking African American in the army. Rather than promote him, and place in a position of authority over white soldiers, the army involuntarily retired Young from active duty, ostensibly because of ill health. To prove his fitness for duty, he rode horseback from his home in Wilberforce, Ohio, to Washington, D.C. The army, nevertheless, did not promote him to colonel until after he retired from service.

Source: Ohio Historical Society