Whitney M. Young Jr. was born on July 31, 1921, in Lincoln Ridge, Kentucky, a middle child with two sisters. His mother was a teacher and his father the principal of the Lincoln Institute, an African American preparatory school. He attended Kentucky State Industrial College before working as a teacher himself and then serving in World War II overseas, where he acted as a bridge between Black and White servicemen.
Young wed his college sweetheart, Margaret Buckner, in 1944, and the couple went on to have two children. Upon his return to the states, Young earned his social work master’s from the University of Minnesota. He went on to work for a few years with the Urban League of St. Paul, with the organization making strides in placing African Americans in previously whites-only employee positions. He became executive secretary of the League’s Omaha branch in 1950 and thus was at the forefront of racial integration in the region. Then in the mid-1950s Young took a position as dean of Atlanta University’s School of Social Work, remaining actively involved in the Civil Rights Movement and heading the state branch of the NAACP.