by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)
Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Thursday, February 24 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 about Lt. Henry O. Flipper, the first African American graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point:
You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Thursday, February 24th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Justice came slowly to Henry O. Flipper, the first African American West Point Academy graduate, but come it did. After graduating in 1877, Flipper became the first non-white US Army officer to lead the Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry.
During the Apache Wars and the Victorio Campaign though, Flipper was court-martialed for alleged improprieties, but in 1994 his descendants pushed to get Flipper’s case reviewed, and President Bill Clinton pardoned Flipper after it was concluded that his conviction was unjust.
West Point now bestows an annual Henry O. Flipper Award to graduates who exhibit, quote, “leadership, self-discipline, and perseverance in the face of unusual difficulties.”
To learn more about Henry O. Flipper, read his autobiography, The Colored Cadet at West Point: Autobiography of Lieut. Henry Ossian Flipper, U. S. A., First Graduate of Color from the U. S. Military Academy, the 2015 biography Henry Ossian Flipper: West Point’s First Black Graduate by Jane Eppinga, or Black Frontiersman: The Memoirs of Henry O. Flipper, First Black Graduate of West Point complied and edited by Theodore D. Harris.
Sources:
- https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/henry-flipper
- https://www.nps.gov/foda/learn/historyculture/secondlieutenanthenryflipper.htm
- https://www.army.mil/article/217505/west_point_honors_henry_o_flipper_awards_mcdonough_with_flipper_award
- https://www.army.mil/article/96426/flipper_dinner_honors_west_points_first_african_american_graduate
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1999/02/20/first-black-army-officer-is-pardoned-by-clinton/ecd9c698-6e36-4a70-b569-7b55004ba4a6/
- https://youtu.be/WX6dnMYIKUA (West Point video on Flipper)
- https://youtu.be/3cMfarulnME (US Army video on Flipper)
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers.
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