Nathan B. Young Sr., bulk: 1888 - 1938

Nathan B. Young Sr. was born enslaved in 1862, in Newburn, Alabama, to mother Susan Smith. His father was unknown. At the end of the Civil War, he and his mother moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where Susan married Frank Young. He attended Stillman Institute and Talladega College, where he worked toward a teaching degree. He was greatly influenced in his career by Talladega College president Henry S. DeForest. Young then enrolled at Oberlin College in Ohio, where he earned a bachelor of arts in 1888 and a master’s degree in 1891.

In 1891, Young married Emma Mae Garret, from Selma, Alabama, and they had two children: Nathan B. Young Jr. and Emma Garrett Young (who later went by the name Gareth). In 1892, he was hired by Booker T. Washington to work at Tuskegee Institute, and in 1897 he left to work at Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth (now Savannah State University). In 1901, he became the president of Florida A&M College in Tallahassee, Florida, where he tried to balance the agricultural and vocational teaching with a liberal arts education.

Emma M. Young died of cancer in 1904, and in 1908, Young married Margaret Buckley. With Margaret, he had three children: William, Frank DeForrest, and Julia. In 1923, Young was forced out of Florida A&M College by white state officials who disapproved of teaching liberal arts to Black students, and he then accepted the presidency of Lincoln University in Missouri. He was again forced out of the presidency by white political leaders in Missouri in 1927; he was reinstated in 1929 but left again in 1931. In 1933, he moved to Tampa, Florida, to live with his daughter Gareth, and died later the same year.

This series contains materials related to Nathan B. Young Sr., split into two subseries: correspondence and other materials.