Young was the second African-American actor to co-star in a television Western, the first being Raymond St Jacques on the final season of Rawhide in 1965.

[1] He then enrolled in acting classes at New York University School of Education where one of his classmates was the young Louis Gossett Jr.[citation needed] He trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse and worked off-Broadway as an actor and writer in the early 1960s.

He studied theology at LIFE Bible College in Los Angeles and obtained a Bachelor of Arts in 1983.

In 1989 he joined the faculty at Monroe Community College in Rochester; he remained there as a Professor of Communication and head of the Drama Department until his retirement in 1999.

[5] Young suffered a stroke in Los Angeles and died on October 12, 2001, aged 69, at the Veterans Hospital.