African American Col. Charles Young Solid Gold Spingarn & Commemoration of Peace Medals 

2 medals, including the Spingarn Medal, with the obverse featuring Lady Justice and the phrase For Merit, and the reverse featuring the following: Spingarn Medal / Awarded to Major Charles Young, U.S.A. February 22, 1916 / By the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the edge marked 14K Solid Gold / Whitehead-Hoag, 159.6 g, 2.5 in. dia. The Spingarn Medal is awarded annually by the NAACP for outstanding achievement by an African American. It was created by Joel Elias Spingarn, Chairman of the Board of the NAACP in 1914. The first medal was awarded in 1915, and it has been given each year since, with the exception of 1938. Col. Charles Young was the second African American awarded the medal out of only 95 to date.

Also included is a post-World War I medal featuring a Lady of Peace at center with two uniformed solders kneeling on each side and a U.S. seal between them, which reads In Commemoration of Peace With Victory, the reverse features the following: 1917-1919 / Awarded to Charles Young U.S. Army / By the Citizens of Jefferson County, Ohio. / For Service in the World's Great War For Liberty and the Freedom of All Nations, with a depiction of Fort Steuben at center left, marked along bottom Greenduck Co. Chicago, 99.1 g, 2.25 in. dia.

Although Col. Charles Young is relatively obscure today, in his time he was among the most accomplished and best known African Americans, and the highest ranking African American soldier in the U.S. military. A friend of the great Harlem Renaissance writer James Weldon Johnson. Born to enslaved parents in 1864, Young became only the third African American graduate of West Point in 1889. During a long career, he served as military attaché to Haiti and Liberia, became the first Black superintendent of a national park, and the first African American to attain the ranks of Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel. After active duty during Pershing's punitive expedition to Mexico in 1916, he retired due to health just before the U.S. entered the First World War, returning briefly to serve a second time as attaché to Liberia, where he died in January 1922. He left his wife, Ada, and at least two children. 

AUCTIONEER'S NOTE: Upon closer examination of the Commemoration of Peace Medal, we believe it to be gilt bronze and not 14K gold.

Each medal is housed in its original case; the medals are in near excellent to excellent condition.