First black West Point grad honored at Fort Leavenworth

John Milburn

FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. — He has been compared to Jackie Robinson for his stoicism while attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Drummed out of the military five years after getting his commission as a second lieutenant in 1877, it took more than his lifetime for the Army to recognize Henry O. Flipper’s punishment for being accused by white officers was “unduly harsh and unjust.”

The Army bestowed one more honor on Flipper with the March 30 dedication of a bust of him at the Buffalo Soldier Monument at Fort Leavenworth.

Flipper was born into slavery in Thomasville, Ga., in 1856 and freed with the end of the Civil War. At 17, he was appointed to West Point. Historian Steve Grove said the academy reflected the nation, and not everyone was enthusiastic about blacks taking a place in the long gray line.

While he wasn’t the first, he was the first black to endure the hardships of four years at the academy.

“Besides having a strong academic background, someone of obvious academic talents, he was a very stoic individual,” Grove said. “He didn’t hit back. Flipper would just bear it.”

Grove said Flipper wrote in his autobiography that he “was above that kind of behavior.” Despite public ridicule and harassment from white cadets, Flipper was known to tutor whites in private to help them with their studies.

“He was an amazing individual. It was amazing how mature he was,” Grove said.

West Point honors a graduate each year who exhibits the same courage in overcoming challenges with the Henry Flipper Award.

Flipper’s assignment after graduation was with the 10th Cavalry Regiment. He served on the frontier from 1878 to 1880 at various Southwest posts, including Fort Sill, Okla. He was a scout, an engineer surveyor and construction supervisor, post adjutant, acting assistant and post quartermaster and commissary officer.

At Fort Davis, Texas, in 1881, Flipper’s career took a dire turn when his commander accused him of embezzling $3,792 from commissary funds. Flipper initially discovered the funds missing from his custody and concealed their disappearance from superiors, hoping the money would return.

He was court-martialed and acquitted of embezzlement, but convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer, and subsequently was ordered out of the Army with a dishonorable discharge.

Flipper began a successful civilian career as an engineer and expert in Spanish and Mexican land law, including writing a book on the subjects for the Department of Justice in 1895. He first petitioned Congress in 1898 to clear his name, writing to Rep. John A.T. Hull, chairman of the House Committee on Military Affairs.

“I am sure that, after reading my brief through, you will understand and appreciate the struggle I made to rise above the situation to which I was born, how I won my way through West Point and how I made as honorable a record in the Army as any officer in it, in spite of the isolation, lack of social association, ostracism and what not to which I was subjected by the great majority of my brother officers,” Flipper wrote.

He went on to say the crime “of being a Negro was, in my case, more heinous than deceiving a commanding officer.”

That plea was rebuked, but he continued to seek to clear his name until his death in 1940 in Georgia. His family and supporters continued the fight, leading to the Army’s decision in 1976 to commute his dismissal to a good conduct discharge, backdated to June 30, 1882, the date he was forced out.

In 1999, President Clinton acted on an Army recommendation to grant Flipper a full pardon.

(Associated Press)