Albert Young's family moved from a good neighborhood in New York City where Jews were accepted to Wilmington, in the 1910s, when he was about 12 years old. The first few weeks in Wilmington, the Youngs lived above a smelly chicken store on Second and Shipley Streets. Albert recalled, "We weren't immigrants at that time but we were in a strange city and as far as we were concerned, Wilmington was like a million miles away from New York." Although there was a Jewish community in Delaware, he often felt out of place.

Young remembers being embarrassed having to wait on his new classmates at his parents store, pumping kerosene wearing old clothes and making deliveries with a pushcart. Albert settled into his new home, and made some friends, but continued to encounter prejudice in college.

Young recollected that his Jewish classmates were subjected to teasing and hazing. "When the professor would call the names, for example, roll: Atkinson, Arthur, James, Cohen Schline. You'd hear Schliney, Coheny! Out loud." Because he was a member of the Dramatic Club-"the first time they ever admitted a Jew to any of the clubs"-Young escaped most of the mockery. Still, he remembers that, "the Jewish boys did not date anybody at the Women's College…the Gentile girls wouldn't be seen with a Jew no matter who he was on campus."

Eventually, Young went to law school at the University of Pennsylvania. In the early years of his law career, he struggled to find a law office to accept him and to get clients. Yet, discrimination failed to hold him back. Young gained a reputation as a skilled criminal and civil trial lawyer, and served as Attorney General of Delaware from 1951 to 1955, arguing Delaware's case against separate but equal schools in the United State Supreme Court.