Samuel (“Sammy”) Leamon Younge Jr. was 21-years-old when he was fatally shot on January 3, 1966 when he tired to use a whites-only restroom at a gas station in Macon County, Alabama. Younge was a navy veteran studying political science at Tuskegee Institute.

The civil rights activist was born on November 17, 1944 in Tuskegee, Alabama. Both his parents were educated professionals Samuel Sr. was an occupational therapist, and Younge’s mother, Renee, was a teacher. Unlike most Black people in Macon County, Sammy Younge and his younger brother, Stephen (“Stevie”) grew up with middle-class privileges and comforts.

Between September 1957 and January 1960 Younge went to Cornwall Academy, a college preparatory school for boys in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Younge graduated from Tuskegee Institute High School in 1962 and enlisted in the U.S. Navy.  Younge served on the aircraft carrier USS Independence during the Cuban Missile Crisis when the vessel participated in the United States blockade of Cuba.  After a year in the navy, Young got diagnosed with a failing kidney that had to be surgically removed.  Younge was given a medical discharge from the navy in July 1964.

Younge returned to Tuskegee and started worked at the Tuskegee Veteran’s Hospital for a few months before entering the Tuskegee Institute in January 1965 as a freshman. In March 1965, Younge took part in the Selma-to-Montgomery Marches in support of voting rights.  His involvement led to him joining the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Tuskegee Institute Advancement League (TIAL), groups that led voter registration drives for African Americans and worked to help desegregate public facilities, recreational facilities, and schools.  Younge traveled to Mississippi later in 1965 to help SNCC and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party register black voters.

Younge’s murder in January 1966 at a Standard Oil gas station by its elderly white night attendant, Marvin Segrest, came while he worked a voter registration campaign in Macon County.  It sparked a variety of protests.  Three days after his murder SNCC called a press conference in which it declared its opposition to the war in Vietnam. Younge’s death was highlighted as an example of fighting for freedom abroad that was denied at home. There were protests in Tuskegee when white county officials initially refused to indict Segrest and later when an all-white jury, in the overwhelmingly black county, took only one hour and ten minutes to acquit Segrest in his December 1966 trial.

SNCC and black leaders used Younge’s death (in combination with the 1965 Voting Rights Act) to inspire a rise in black political participation in the region.  By 1970 the majority of office holders in Macon County and other predominately black central Alabama counties were Black American.

Sources:

Bourlin, O. (2014, September 30). Samuel (“Sammy”) Leamon Younge, Jr. (1944-1966). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/younge-samuel-sammy-leamon-jr-1944-1966/

http://newsone.com/2824521/samuel-sammy-younge-jr/; James Forman,
Sammy Younge, Jr.: The First Black College Student to Die in the Black
Liberation Movement (Washington, D.C.: Open Hand Publishing, 1986)
[first published 1968]; “Samuel Younge, Jr.,” Encyclopedia of Alabama,
http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1669; Michael
F. Wright Ph.D., J.D., Sammy Younge Jr. Memorial Address
http://www.crmvet.org/mem/younges.htm.

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