This collection consists of materials from Nathan B. Young Jr. (1894-1993), a lawyer and judge in St. Louis, Missouri. These materials consist of correspondence, personal papers, scrapbooks, photographs, writing, publications, newspapers, and art.

Nathan B. Young Jr. was born in Tuskegee, Alabama on November 28th, 1894, to parents Nathan B. Young Sr. and Emma Mae Garret. At the time of his birth, his father was a teacher at the Tuskegee Institute and a close friend of Booker T. Washington. In 1897, Nathan Sr. began to work at Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth (now Savannah State University) and in 1901, he became the president of Florida A&M College in Tallahassee, Florida. The family moved with him, and Nathan Sr. and Emma had one other child together, Emma Garret Young (who later went by the name Gareth). Young’s mother passed from cancer in 1904, and Nathan Sr. married Margaret Buckley in 1908, with whom he had three children: William, Frank DeForrest, and Julia.

Young completed his undergraduate studies at Florida A&M College in 1915. He then attended Yale Law School, graduating in 1918. That same year, he moved to Birmingham, Alabama, and passed the Alabama Bar Exam, the third Black person to do so. He was an active organizer for the NAACP in Birmingham and received a warning from the Ku Klux Klan for this work. During his time in Birmingham, he met Mamie Mason, who he married in 1924. They were married for 58 years, until Mamie’s death in 1982, and had three children together: Ira, Jean, and Gertrude.

Soon after their marriage, the family moved to St. Louis, Missouri where Young established a legal practice. By this time, his father was serving as the president of Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. In 1928, Young co-founded the St. Louis American, a weekly Black newspaper still active today. He served as a publisher and editorial writer for the newspaper for over 40 years, although he never owned the newspaper or received a salary for this work. He also co-founded the Mound City Bar Association, a Black law association.

In 1965, after serving as Assistant City Counselor for the City of St. Louis, Young was appointed Municipal Court Judge by Mayor Alfonso J. Cervantes. He was the first Black judge in the city. Shortly after this appointment, the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross on the lawn on his home, and his home was firebombed in 1971. However, he remained in his position until his retirement in 1972.

Young had a wide range of personal and professional interests, including art, music, world issues, and Black history. He painted over 500 acrylic paintings that were exhibited several times, and he also established the Nathan B. Young Historic Memorial (named after Nathan Sr.). He received honorary doctorate degrees from Saint Louis University, Lincoln University, and Harris-Stowe State College. He died on March 24, 1993, at the age of 98.

This collection is divided into nine series: Correspondence; Life and Ephemera; Nathan B. Young Sr.; Scrapbooks; Photographs; Writing; Publications; Signs, Sketches, and Posters; and Paintings. Much of the material, whether written by Young or collected by him, relates to civil rights and the Black history of St. Louis through the 20th century.