The students of the Radical University: Kenneth M. Young

Kenneth M. Young
From Ancestory.com

Kenneth Murray?/Mertonelle? Young (b. April 16, 1859; d. March 6, 1929)
South Carolina.  Enslaved. Mulatto.
Occupation: barber, mail carrier, school principal.
Father's occupation: barber, furniture repairer, mattress maker, upholsterer.

Kenneth M. Young was born to Joe and Priscilla Foster Young. Both parents were enslaved. Records on Joe's background are conflicting. He is listed as being born in South Carolina in the 1900 U.S. census, but in 1870 and 1880, the census describes him as being born in North Carolina. Papers held by Joe's descendants record that he was enslaved in North Carolina by George Washington Jones, Sr. and then given to his son-in-law Robert Maxwell Young as a wedding gift. Those papers and DNA evidence also indicate that Joe was son of Jones and one of his slaves (whose name was not recorded). 

Accounts by Kenneth himself confirm that Joe was enslaved by Robert Maxwell Young. Dr. Young was a physician in the village of Spartanburg, South Carolina. Joe was one of six slaves in the Young household.

Dr. Young's medical practice in Spartanburg was not very lucrative, so he began to seek greater opportunities in the west. That area had recently been opened up to American settlers through the passage of the Indian Removal Act. Dr. Young purchased farmland in northwest Georgia, near the modern town of Cartersville, an area that had long been home to the Cherokee people. He moved his household there in 1837 (when Joe was in his early twenties).

In Georgia, Dr. Young started a farm that became Walnut Grove Plantation. The main house was a two-story colonial brick building. The planation also included a stable, a barn carriage house, a smoke house, and log cabins housing slaves. Dr. Young's household grew to include twelve slaves in 1840 and then twenty-eight by 1850. With the help of enslaved workers, he ran the farm and also continued his medical practice.

Walnut Grove Plantation in 2012
From David Seibert via HMdb

Kenneth's mother Priscilla was born in Virginia, but by the 1840s, she was enslaved by Robert's neighbor Joel Foster. Like Robert, Colonel Foster had been living in Spartanburg but moved to Georgia to start a farm. In Spartanburg, one member of Colonel Foster's household, a young girl who possibly was Priscilla, was enslaved. The household more than doubled in Georgia as Colonel Foster's needed more labor to maintain his farm. Twenty-seven people were enslaved in 1850.

Both Joe and Priscilla were house servants. Priscilla served as a nurse and a maid for Joel's wife, Charlotte Susan Bookter Foster. Joe was the personal servant of Robert's son Pierce M. B. Young. Those duties likely ended in the 1850s. In 1852, Pierce (then a teenager) left home to attend the nearby Georgia Military Institute in Marietta. He remained there for four years and then moved to New York to attend the U. S. Military Academy at West Point which he attended until the Civil War broke. Joe almost certainly did not follow Pierce to New York as state law outlawed slavery, but he might have joined Pierce in Marietta.

Joseph Young
From "LeonJackson15 "via ancestory.com

The farms that Colonel Foster and Dr. Young ran were small but successful. They grew corn and other provisions as well as cotton, the main cash crop in the area. By 1850, both Colonel Foster and Dr. Young's holdings in land and slaves placed them on the cusp of ascending to planter status. 

Kenneth's parents Joe and Priscilla married on June 20, 1846, although their union was not recognized by law. They had five children in Georgia: the daughter Ann Caroline and the sons Joesph Jr., Blakeley, Butler, and Eldrige Caroline. (In a 1929 account, Kenneth wrote that he had six older brothers, but only four names appear in a modern family tree.)

Around 1858, after almost ten years of marriage and the birth of their children, Joe and Pricilla were forced to split up as Joel moved his household back to Spartanburg. Wanting to allow the couple to remain together, Colonel Foster offered to purchase Joe, but Dr. Young declined. Joe proceeded to leave the Young plantation for Spartanburg on his own accord. After exchanging letters on the matter with Colonel Foster, Dr. Young agreed to hire Joe out, so that he could remain with Pricilla. Until Emancipation, Joe performed skilled labor to repay the Fosters for hiring him.

Priscilla Young
From LeonJackson15 from Ancestory.com

Kenneth was born in 1859, shortly after his parents moved to Spartanburg. (The 1870 Census states he was born in Georgia, but this is an error.) He never had close contact with Robert Young's family, but he enjoyed close relations with Joel Foster's family.

As recorded in the 1860 Census, the situation in Joel Foster's household appears to have taken a peculiar turn after he moved back to Spartanburg. Joel's profession is recorded as "farmer," but he was doing very little farming. While he owned 88 acres of land, he was only cultivating a small portion of it. He grew no cotton (the main cash crop in the area), and the farm produced only a fraction of the provision crops needed to feed the household. This was a precipitous decline. Ten years earlier, his farm in Georgia had produced 20,800 pounds of cotton and enough corn and other provisions to feed the entire household. 

Joel's relationship with his enslaved workforce also appears to have been unusually strained. His household included twenty enslaved workers (likely four families) but half had fled from the farm. The census did not record slave names but comparing the recorded ages and genders with Kenneth Young's family suggests that they were among the fugitives, although Kenneth does not mention his family leaving the Foster household and generally presents the two families as enjoying good relations.

When the Civil War broke out, Joel was too old to serve in military. (He was about 50 years old.) However, two of his sons served the Confederate army. Christian B. enlisted in the army on August 27, 1861, shortly after the First Battle of Bull Run (the first major battle of the war). He was a private in the 13th Regiment, South Carolina Infantry. He enlisted for the duration of the war. His younger brother Barham W. enlisted on March 19, 1864 and also served as a private in the 13th Regiment. About five months after Barham enlisted, Christian was wounded at the Second Battle of Ream's Station. Christian's injuries were serious enough that he was furloughed for a month and sent to Jackson Hospital in Richmond, VA.

The immediate impact of the Civil War on Kenneth was limited. Only six years old at the war's end, Kenneth had limited understanding of meaning of secession and rebellion. He never directly witnessed the war as no fighting took place in Spartanburg. Within the Foster household, tensions would have been high as the family worried over the fates of the sons who had joined the army and of the Confederacy. Wartime also created financial hardship for the household as South Carolina found itself cut off from markets, making it difficult to sell cotton and purchase goods such as coffee and salt. For Kenneth, the most apparent change was in the make-up of the town: many of the young men left to join the army and they were replaced by war refugees who swelled the population from three thousand to twenty-five thousand.

The end of the war came to Spartanburg in the summer of 1865 when Union troops were sent to the town to restore order following the defeat of the Confederate army. Their arrival ushered in the end of slavery, but change came slowly. On June 5, a sale day when many people from the countryside were in town, a Union officer issued a proclamation freeing the slaves. However, the proclamation went unenforced, so life continued largely as before. Some slaves freed themselves by leaving their enslaver, while others were freed by their enslaver, but on many farms, news of Emancipation was not shared with the slaves, and life continued on as before. In mid-August, a second proclamation was issued. This and the continued presence of Union soldiers pushed most enslavers to inform their slaves that they were now free. 

Freedom meant few changes for Kenneth. Because of his youth and the nature of his parents' duties (housework rather than farm labor), his life was not unlike that of white children. In fact, he was playmates with Colonel's Foster's children, three of whom (the son Joel A. and the daughters Mattie and Annie) were close to his age. Kenneth himself never considered himself enslaved. In a 1929 autobiographical account, he called Colonel Foster "his mother's master" and declared that he himself "never acknowledged one." 

In contrast, freedom had great significance for Kenneth's parents. While Kenneth regularly emphasized the benevolent nature of the Foster family and the good relations they enjoyed with Kenneth's family in his writing, he also made it clear that his parents were grateful for Emancipation. His mother, he wrote, told him that her "biggest prayer" was for "Freedom" for her family. 

Kenneth's family was privileged to experience a relatively mild transition to life as freed persons. His father was able to turn his experience as a body servant into a personal business: he worked as a barber in Spartanburg. His barber shop near the intersection of S. Church and E. Main, in the Palmetto House. He earned enough money that Priscilla was able to stay at home and run the household. In contrast, the vast majority freedmen were landless farm laborers who faced the difficult prospect of negotiating labor relations with former enslavers.

The Palmetto House where Joe Young maintained a barbershop
From Spartanburg County Historical Association via hubcitytour

Both of Kenneth's parents were illiterate, but his mother Priscilla had become impressed by the importance of education through her interactions with her enslaver. Charlotte Foster was a well-educated woman who was fluent in several languages. Priscilla worked hard to provide Kenneth with an education. He had private tutors from ages five to fifteen. His tutors included one "Prof. W. I. Lewis" (possibly a faculty member at one of the local colleges), who taught him algebra and Latin.

The father Joe was also concerned about education. He was one of five men to sign a July 15, 1869 letter to the Freedmen's Bureau requesting funds to build a schoolhouse. Joe's involvement of his request was a mark of his status within the community. The other signers included J. P. F. Camp, one of the county's delegates to the 1868 constitutional convention. 

Joel Foster remained in Spartanburg after the war. While Colonel Foster considered himself a farmer by occupation, he also began working as an assistant cashier at a bank. After the restoration of civil government in 1868, Foster was elected as Spartanburg county's state senator on the conservative Democratic ticket, receiving 1,963 votes against the 1,377 votes received by his Republican opponent (Adolphus Putnam Turner, a white South Carolinian who worked as a sawyer and had run a small farm in Spartanburg County before the war). 

Colonel Foster's election was highly unusual. A 1868 revision to the state constitution had enfranchised freedmen, and they proceeded to vote into office a state legislature dominated by Republicans. Of the thirty-one state senators, Joel was one of only six conservatives. During the election, he had benefitted from Spartanburg County's large white majority (whites made up just over two-thirds of the population) and well-organized county conservative party. For the remainder of Reconstruction, Spartanburg County was a regional center of conservative power.

Joel himself appears to have been a moderate and was positively regarded by Republicans. A northern Republican who worked in the statehouse as a stenographer (Louis F. Post) said that he was an "even tempered, intelligent and honest white South Carolinian of the small farmer class" who had an "attractive presence" and a "lovable personality."

In the face of a large Republican majority, Joel's powers in the state senate were limited. Two years into his senatorship, the Charleston Daily News commented that, with the exception of their leader R. M. Sims, Joel and the other Democratic senators never spoke, and their impact was limited to preventing or amending the more "extreme party measures" by voting with moderate Republicans. 

Joel's most impactful work as senator was his service on a special joint committee charged with investigating the state land commission. The land commission had been charged with purchasing land and then subdividing it and selling it to landless residents, but its activities quickly became mired in corruption. Politically connected landowners bribed state officials to overvalue their land so that they could sell it to the commission at a profit. The committee Joel was on was formed to investigate the accusations. 

Formed in November 1870, Joel was one of seven committee members, and the only one that belonged to the Democratic party. The committee's activities were delicate as the accusations involved the governor and other major state politicians. It appears that committee largely functioned as a smokescreen as many committee members did little or not work. The committee chair attended few meetings, and Joel acted as chair pro tempore. While the committee collected some useful testimony, at the end of term, it had only collected a fraction of the information needed to make a full assessment. Ultimately, Joel refused to sign the final report because the collected testimony was incomplete.

On racial issues, the Republican stenographer who worked with Colonel Foster thought that he probably had "the traditional prejudices of his place and race," but Colonel Foster was supportive of Kenneth. In winter 1870 (when Kenneth was eleven year old), Colonel Foster hired him as a senate page after learning, to his surprise, that Kenneth was literate. 

Kenneth remembered his time at the statehouse as an exciting one. At the time, a number of African American politicians served in both the House and the Senate. Decades later, he recalled seeing Alonzo J. Ransier serve as lieutenant-governor, Jonathan Jasper Wright as state Supreme Court justice, and Robert B. Elliot as Speaker of the House. He was especially impressed with Elliot, who he recalled as an "ideal orator." He also saw Robert Smalls and learned of his heroic capture of a Confederate gunboat during the Civil War. 

While Kenneth was in Columbia working in the statehouse, conditions in Spartanburg deteriorated. Following the 1870 election, Ku Klux Klan violence began to erupt throughout the Upcountry. Spartanburg County was a major center of Ku Klux activity. Most Ku Klux violence took place in rural areas and involved whipping and beating politically active freedmen. Less violence took place in the town of Spartanburg, although Republicans there were very fearful for their safety. 

Accounts of the Young family's experience with Ku Klux violence are contradictory. Writing decades later, Kenneth said that his family was attacked at their home while he was away. He described the attack as a "fusillade," suggesting that the attack was serious enough that firearms were discharged. Several of the town's "best citizens" came to the family's aid, and it appears they drove off the Ku Kluxers without serious injury. The Young family had been helped by the fact that the father Joe had received a warning from Colonel Foster. Kenneth cited this as evidence of the good relations enjoyed by the families: "Though a sympathizer with the Klan, like all good and brave he [Joel Foster] invited his own death rather than see his children's loyal nurse [Priscilla] molested – bereaved."

Colonel Foster described the situation very differently. In 1872, he testified before a Congressional subcommittee charged with investigating Ku Klux violence in South Carolina. Foster told the committee that he had no knowledge of the Ku Klux Klan or its members. He did say that Ku Klux violence was a concern for the Young family. During the period of Ku Klux activity, Colonel Foster noticed that Joe Young appeared concerned. When asked about this, Joe explained that he was worried about his family being subject to a Ku Klux attack and was considering posting a guard outside his home. Joel cautioned him against doing this, saying that a guard would only attract unwanted attention. Instead, he invited the Young family stay at his home and offered to provide Joe with a written letter attesting to his character. Joel told the committee that Joe did not take him on his offer, but it seemed to have made Joe relieved, and the Young family never experienced attacks. A committee member responded by saying that he had been informed by others that members of the Young family had been attacked at their home and had to seek refuge in their chimney. The information evidently was offered informally and no-one provided recorded testimony about such an attack.

Colonel Foster had reasons to lie about his knowledge of the Ku Klux Klan. In general, conservative political leaders tried to downplay Ku Klux activity for fear that it might bring intervention by federal troops and scare off financial investors. He also had also personal reasons. His son C. Bookter Foster was one of several men arrested in November 1871 for suspected Ku Klux activities. His arrest was part of the wave of law enforcement activity that followed President Grant October declaration that habeas corpus  (legal recourse against arbitrary detention) was suspended. Over the course of October and November, over fifty arrests were made, and state-wide, hundreds were imprisoned. 

The reason for the arrest of Bookter Foster is not entirely unclear as no arrest warrant was issued. (Grant's declaration rendered them unnecessary.) Most likely, the arrest was made for suspected involvement in an incident that took place in Union, a town about a day's ride (25 miles) from Spartanburg. In February, hundreds of men had descended on the Union county jail and murdered a number of African American prisoners. In addition to Colonel Foster's son, those arrested in November included Spartanburg's former sheriff L. M. Gentry. Gentry ran a livery-stable, and some believed that Gentry had helped organize the raid on the jail and had offered his horses to local Ku Kluxers traveling to Union. 

The Congressional committee appears to have suspected that Colonel Foster was involved with the Ku Klux as they questioned him about related activities in Columbia. After the 1870 election, conservatives in Columbia drafted documents for an organization called the Council of Safety. While in the city, Colonel Foster had received a package of printed copies from Edwin Whipple Seibels, a former Confederate major and the chairman of the Democratic executive committee. Seibels suggested that he bring them to the town of Laurens (a center of Ku Klux activity) for distribution.

Like much of the activity surrounding the Ku Klux Klan, the nature of the Council of Safety was disputed. Republicans suspected that the organization was simply another name for the state-wide Ku Klux Klan. Conservative leaders denied this and downplayed the organization's significance. Seibels claimed that plans to form the Council of Safety were abandoned, and it was never related to Ku Kluxers (who, he said, were nothing more than disorganized criminals, "bushwhackers").

Colonel Foster also downplayed the significance of the Council of Safety in testimony he gave to a Congressional committee. He acknowledged that he had received a package of pamphlets describing the Council from Seibels who suggested he distribute them in Laurens. However, he claimed that nothing resulted from this; he only received two or three pamphlets which he only closely read a few days before his testimony. Moreover, he never distributed the pamphlets in Laurens. Instead, he just gave one pamphlet to his son and another to a local merchant (Don Fleming). The questions posted by the committee suggest that they believed that the Council of Safety was a Ku Klux group that Colonel Foster had helped organize, and his son and the merchant were members.

Colonel Foster did begin speaking out against the Ku Klux in January 1871, a few months after violence broke out in Spartanburg. On January 20, he and the county's four state congressmen endorsed recent recommendations to curb violence in the area. The recommendations had been made a week earlier at a January 12 public meeting in Spartanburg. The outcome of the meeting was a resolution recommending that citizens support law officials in their efforts to restore order in the county. The resolutions made no reference to the Ku Klux, but it was understood to be directed at incidents attributed to them. 

A week after the letter was published (on January 25), the head of the state militia General Anderson visited up-county counties including Spartanburg in an effort to curb violence. He disarmed the local militia (a major source of tension with white conservatives) and met with local conservative leaders. They decided to hold a meeting in Limestone Springs (where violence had been the worst). Many attended, and several prominent local leaders, including Colonel Foster, spoke. The meeting concluded with participants passing a resolution pledging them to use their influence to prevent future "outrages."

Colonel Foster's efforts to stop Ku Klux violence should be viewed critically. The men who signed the January letter calling for an end to violence included congressman J. Banks Lyle, believed to be a state-wide leader of the Ku Klux. Later that year, he fled the state to avoid federal prosecution. At the time the letter was published, conservative leaders were beginning to fear that Ku Klux violence was beginning counterproductive. It was attracting unwanted attention from federal authorities and disrupting social order. 

Colonel Foster's later actions suggest that the threat of federal intervention was a major motivation to his efforts to curb Ku Klux violence. In early September 1871, a few months after he testified before the congressional committee, the committee chair John Scott wrote to President Grant asking him to impose martial law on South Carolina. Not only had Scott's investigation produced ample evidence that violence was endemic to the state, but he wrote that lawlessness and violence were continuing even after the committee's visit. Colonel Foster was one of a number of prominent citizens in Spartanburg would responding with a public letter saying that, in fact, no acts of violence had occurred, and there was no need for martial law. Spartanburg county, they wrote, was in a "state of profound peace and quiet."

The letter was ineffective as the next month Grant's suspended habeas corpus, the act that enabled the arrest of Colonel Foster's son. The son appears to have avoided criminally conviction and was released after at most a few months in jail. In early February 1872 (a three months after the arrest), the family left South Carolina for Texas. The timing indicated that they were very eager to leave the state; Joel's term as state senator had not yet ended, and his departure significantly weakened conservative representation in the statehouse. In general, Ku Kluxers from prominent families avoided criminal prospection by leaving the state, and those convicted were men of limited means.

Despite their close relationship with the Foster family, Kenneth's family members were active supporters of the Republican Reconstruction government. Kenneth's father-in-law Joe ran, unsuccessfully, for state congress in the elections of 1870 and 1874. Kenneth's brother Joe Jr. was also politically active. With support from John C. Winsmith, a Spartanburg planter who was a major figure in the county Republican party, tried to secure for Joe Jr. a gubernatorial appointment as county auditor or a census taker. Winsmith was unsuccessful in those efforts, but by 1877, Joe Jr. managed to become jury commissioner. 

On October 5, 1874, Kenneth enrolled at the University of South Carolina. His enrollment was a stroke of good fortune. A few years earlier, the university had been recognized, and the faculty was replaced with new professors supportive of the Reconstruction government. Among those hired was Anson W. Cummings, previously a resident of Spartanburg. Shortly before the a new semester started, Anson visited the town. While there, he happened to enter Kenneth's father's barber shop for a shave. Kenneth was there shining shoes, and Cummings engaged him in casual conversation. Kenneth made a good impression on him, and he began asking what subjects Kenneth had studied and which textbooks he had read. He advised Kenneth to brush up his Latin and algebra and asked Kenneth's father if he'd like to send his son to university. After consulting with his mother, Kenneth's father enthusiastically supported their son's studies. His mother Priscilla was delighted; after Emancipation, having a son in college was her "biggest prayer."

Kenneth recalled that, on his first day on campus, he entered the college chapel (likely Rutledge College) and saw the quotation "Non scholae, sed vitae disco." (The sentence translates to "We do not learn for school, but for life," an inversion of a quote that appears in Seneca the Younger's Moral Letters to Lucilius.) The quote had been put up while the university was all-white, and Kenneth was proud that he'd learned enough Latin to understand it.

Kenneth entered into the sub freshman (or college preparatory) class, but by January 1876, he was a college student following the modern studies program. Kenneth lived off campus, at 16 Green St. He shared a residence with E. J. Sawyer. 

While a student at USC, Kenneth was involved in a racial incident. In September 1875, he was thrown off a train because he was traveling in the first-class car and refused to leave when a railroad employee told him the car was "Whites only." The incident is described in greater detail in Lewis C. Scott's entry. 

The University of South Carolina closed before Kenneth completed his degree. After the university closure (in Fall 1877), he enrolled at Atlanta University, entering as a junior following the Scientific Course.  He later wrote about his experience in Atlanta. Kenneth was welcomed to Atlanta University by his former USC classmate John L. Dart who had enrolled the previous year. He was later joined by a number of former USC students he was friendly with ("the gang"), namely J. J. Durham, T. H. Henderson, J. J. Holland, D. H. Maffett, T. F. P. Roberts, R. L. Smith, and E. J. Stewart. Although he wasn't mentioned by Kenneth, Samuel H. McCoy was also in their class, and Peter Oliver (a preparatory student at USC)  was a freshman following the scientific course.The next year, two other former USC student, Benjamin F. Hartwell and William H. Heard, enrolled at Atlanta University, although Kenneth does not mention them either. Kenneth left the university in Spring 1879 without completing his degree. He wrote, "I left there as I had entered – wild, but a little subdued in spirit."

Two years, on September 12, 1881, Kenneth married a young women he had met in Georgia, Tempey (or Tempy) Braswell. Tempey lived in the town of Macon and was the daughter of a wealthy and respected Black family headed by Willis and Josephine Braswell. Her father Willis was a barber. Willis was likely a free person of color before the war as a 1922 obituary states that he ran a shop in the antebellum. While Kenneth did not write about how he met Tempey, a reasonable conjecture is that they met while he was working in Macon as a summer teacher. 

Tempey Braswell Young
From "md10" at ancestory.com

After leaving Atlanta University, Kenneth returned to Spartanburg.  There he worked as a barber and as a public school principal. He later received an appointment as a mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service, a position he held for a quarter of a century.

In 1891, Kenneth began experiences health problems. To improve his health, he took a trip out west. By train, he traveled as far as Salt Lake, Utah. In 1890, Kenneth published an account of his trip titled As some things appear on the Plains and among the Rockies in mid-summer.

Five years later (in 1896) Kenneth published his novel Selene.  The novel is based on the experiences of some of his classmates at Atlanta University.  The novel recounts the story of the main character's studies at university, his flight out west, and his experiences with the Sioux around the time of the Wounded Knee Massacre (1890-91).  In a magazine interview, Kenneth said that he wrote the novel

Because I wanted to read one in which the characters were all negroes.  I'm tired of reading about the things that white people have done and do and will do, about their feelings, passions, aspirations, and inspirations.  It's time for the colored people to know something of the feelings, capabilities, and higher aims that they may attain to, and they must learn this through books about themselves, and these can only be written by men or women of our race.

Although he never held elected office, Kenneth was interested in politics.  On May 22, 1895, The State newspaper published a letter Kenneth wrote to former governor Wade Hampton.  The letter was published during an important time in South Carolina politics.  A state constitutional convention was to be held later in the year, and it was convened largely through the efforts of then Senator Ben Tillman and his supporters.  They had openly advocated for the convention for the purpose of changing the state constitution so as to disenfranchise African American voters.

In his letter, Kenneth reminded Hampton of his promise during his 1876 gubernatorial campaign to protect the rights of African Americans and asked him to issue a statement against disenfranchisement.  It was natural to appeal to Hampton as he was an influential political figure who held comparatively moderate views on race issues.  However, the laudatory language Kenneth used is somewhat surprising.  For example, Kenneth wrote that Hampton, "in 1876, inaugurated a revolution that relieved the negro of the odium of a corrupt government and placed the reins in the hands of intelligent citizens."  One of the first acts of the "intelligent citizens" had been to expel African Americans students like Kenneth from the University of South Carolina. Despite Kenneth's appeal, the state constitution was revised so that African American voters were disenfranchised.

Kenneth was visited by his former USC professor Richard T. Greener in fall 1907. Greener was passing through the state, visiting old friends. He met with Kenneth while in Spartanburg. In a letter about his visit, Greener noted approvingly that Kenneth's family had achieved significant professional success. Two of his brothers worked as bricklayers, a third as an architect, and a fourth as an expert tile layer. 

Kenneth spent most of his adult life in Spartanburg, and he died there in 1929.  The State newspaper published his obituary which was (erroneously) titled "Last Negro Student of University Dies." He is buried in Old City Cemetery in Spartanburg.

Young family. Kenneth is in the middle row, on the left
From eelliott1 at Ancestory.com 

Spartanburg Home of Kenneth Young (372 S. Liberty St)
Home has been demolished, but it was located near the current location of Mt. Moriah Baptist Church

Sources
1). "General Gossip of Authors and Writers", Current Literature, A Magazine of Contemporary Record.  Edited by E. S. Van Zile.  April 1897.  Vol. XXI, No. 4.

2). "Last Negro Student of University Dies."  State (published as The State), March 8, 1929.  p. 9.

3). "Appeal to Hampton." State (published as The State), May 22, 1895.  p. 5.

4). 1870; Census Place: Court House, Spartanburg, South Carolina; Roll: M593_1508; Page: 407A

5). 1900; Census Place: Spartanburg Ward 1, Spartanburg, South Carolina; Page: 12

6). 1910; Census Place: Spartanburg Ward 1, Spartanburg, South Carolina; Roll: T624_1473; Page: 7B

7). 1920; Census Place: Spartanburg Ward 1, Spartanburg, South Carolina; Roll: T625_1711; Page: 20B

8). Holland, Lynwood Mathis. Pierce M.B. Young: The Warwick of the South. Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 1964.

9). 1860 U.S. Federal Census - Slave Schedules

10). 1860; Census Place: Southern Division, Spartanburg, South Carolina; Archive Collection Number: AD262; Roll: 4; Page: 1; Line: 15; Schedule Type: Agriculture

11). 1860; Census Place: Spartanburg, Spartanburg, South Carolina; Page: 304; Family History Library Film: 805226

12). National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington, D.C.; Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of South Carolina; Series Number: M267; Roll: 264

13) "Letter to Senator Scott." The daily phoenix. [Columbia, SC], September 7, 1871, p. 3

13) "Nailing a Falsehood" The Charleston daily news, September 8, 1871, p. 2.

13) "Arrests – Releases – Prisoners." The Fairfield herald. [Winnsboro, SC], December 6, 1871, p. 2.

14) "Crumbs." The Charleston daily news, February 2, 1872, p. 3.

15) "Further Reports" The Charleston daily news, November 29, 1871, p. 1.

16) Young, Kenneth M. "Reminiscences of School." The Scroll, May, 1900. pp. 12–14.

17) United States. Congress. Joint Select Committee on the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States. Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States. pp. 810–842.

18) "Retired Negro Mail Carrier Is Discovered Dead." The Watchman and Southern (Sumter, SC). March 9,  1929. p. 1.

19) "Negro Found Dead." The Index-Journal (Greenwood, SC). March 7, 1929. p. 1.

20) The Laurens Advertiser (Laurens,  SC). December 15, 1896. p. 3.

21) Adams, Myron W. General Catalogue of Atlanta University, 1867-1918. The Atlanta University Press, 1918. p. 87.

22) Greener, Richard Theodore. Letter to Francis J. Grimké. 18 November, 1907. In Works of Francis J. Grimké, Volume IV: Letters. The Associated Publishers, Inc. Washington, DC. 1942.

23) "Politics in the State." The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], April 24, 1868, p. 1.

24) "The New Regime." The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], March 10, 1870, p. 1.

25) "The Martial Law Business." The Charleston daily news. [ Charleston], January 28, 1871, p. 1.

26) "Nailing a Falsehood." The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], September 8, 1871, p. 2.

27) "In Search of Light." The Anderson intelligencer. [Anderson, SC], July 20, 1871, p. 2.

28) "The Land Commission." The Anderson intelligencer. [Anderson, SC], August 3, 1871, p. 3.

29) "Items – Editorial and Otherwise." The Anderson intelligencer. [Anderson, SC], February 8, 1872, p. 2.

30) "The New Legislature – Something to be Thankful for." The Greenville enterprise. [Greenville, SC], October 30, 1872, p. 2.

31) Billingsley, Jennifer. "Walnut Grove and the Young Family: An Archival Study of Walnut Grove and the Young Family." 

32) David G. Harris, Piedmont Farmer: The Journals of David Golightly Harris, 1855-1870. Edited with an introduction by Philip N. Racine (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990.

33) J. H. Hamilton, J. P. F. Camp, A. Tolleson, Elias James, and Joseph Young. Letter to O. O. Howard. July 15, 1869. Freedmen's Bureau Digital Collection, 1865–1872: Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of South Carolina, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865–1870. Smithsonian Institution. Identifier: NMAAHC.FB.M869, File 4.5.1.

34) "Negro Barber Dies." Atlanta Journal Constitution [Atlanta, GA], September 25[?], 1922. p. ?. From a clipping posted to  Ancestry.com by Eloise Brown.

35) "State News." The Beaufort tribune and Port Royal commercial. [Beaufort, SC], February 15, 1877, p. 3

36) Rubin, Hyman III. South Carolina Scalawags. p. 97.