Correspondence, speeches, reports, testimony, press releases, and articles of Young. The files document Young's leadership in many social welfare and civil rights organizations, as well as his activities as a columnist and speaker. Cataloged correspondents include Robert F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Hubert H. Humphrey, Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King, Roy Wilkins, and John W. Gardner.

The files relate to his six years as chair of the CU History Department (1988-1994), plus a couple that refer to wider professional activities of some significance outside the University.

The Willowbrook Review Panel was a Federal monitoring group established by the U.S. District Court in 1975 and dismissed from its duties in 1987. The Willowbrook Review Panel Records provide extensive documentation of the Panel's main function: monitoring implementation of the 1975 Willowbrook Consent Decree in New York State which set new standards for the care of the facility's residents.