Born in 1856 in Thomasville, Georgia, Henry Ossian Flipper was nine at the end of the Civil War. His parents, part of a privileged upper class of slaves, were allowed to operate an independent business under the protection of their owner. This placed Henry in an excellent position to take advantage of new educational opportunities opening up to African Americans and he graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1877. Flipper served at Fort Sill in what is now Oklahoma; took part in the Indian Wars; and served at Fort Davis in Texas, where a court-martial relating to missing funds ended his Army career with a dishonorable discharge. He later was an assistant to the Secretary of the Interior during the early 1920s Harding administration, and died in 1940. Investigations into the circumstances of Flipper’s court-martial resulted in an upgrade to honorable discharge in 1976 and a posthumous pardon from President Clinton in 1999. Passages from Flipper’s 1878 autobiography and excerpts from contemporary military reports and newspaper articles contribute firsthand observations to this biography of West Point’s first black graduate.

Henry Ossian Flipper (21 March 1856 - 3 May 1940) was an American soldier, former slave, and the first African American to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1877, earning a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Army.

This book introduces students to African-American innovators and their contributions to art, entertainment, sports, politics, religion, business, and popular culture. While the achievements of such individuals as Barack Obama, Toni Morrison, and Thurgood Marshall are well known, many accomplished African Americans have been largely forgotten or deliberately erased from the historical record in America. This volume introduces students to those African Americans whose successes in entertainment, business, sports, politics, and other fields remain poorly understood. Dr. Charles Drew, whose pioneering research on blood transfusions saved thousands of lives during World War II; Mae Jemison, an engineer who in 1992 became the first African American woman to travel in outer space; and Ethel Waters, the first African American to star in her own television show, are among those chronicled in Forgotten African American Firsts. With nearly 150 entries across 17 categories, this book has been carefully curated to showcase the inspiring stories of African Americans whose hard work, courage, and talent have led the course of history in the United States and around the world.

An unheralded military hero, Charles Young (1864–1922) was the third black graduate of West Point, the first African American national park superintendent, the first black U.S. military attaché, the first African American officer to command a Regular Army regiment, and the highest-ranking black officer in the Regular Army until his death. Black Officer in a Buffalo Soldier Regiment tells the story of the man who—willingly or not—served as a standard-bearer for his race in the officer corps for nearly thirty years, and who, if not for racial prejudice, would have become the first African American general. Brian G. Shellum describes how, during his remarkable army career, Young was shuffled among the few assignments deemed suitable for a black officer in a white man’s army—the Buffalo Soldier regiments, an African American college, and diplomatic posts in black republics such as Liberia. Nonetheless, he used his experience to establish himself as an exceptional cavalry officer. He was a colonel on the eve of the United States’ entry into World War I, when serious medical problems and racial intolerance denied him command and ended his career. Shellum’s book seeks to restore a hero to the ranks of military history; at the same time, it informs our understanding of the role of race in the history of the American military.

In the decades following the Civil War, scores of African Americans served in the U.S. Army in the West. The Plains Indians dubbed them buffalo soldiers, and their record in the infantry and cavalry, a record full of dignity and pride, provides one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of the era. This anthology focuses on the careers and accomplishments of black soldiers, the lives they developed for themselves, their relationships to their officers (most of whom were white), their specialized roles (such as that of the Black Seminoles), and the discrimination they faced from the very whites they were trying to protect. In short, this volume offers important insights into the social, cultural, and communal lives of the buffalo soldiers. The selections are written by prominent scholars who have delved into the history of black soldiers in the West. Previously published in scattered journals, the articles are gathered here for the first time in a single volume, providing a rich and accessible resource for students, scholars, and interested general readers. Additionally, the readings in this volume serve in some ways as commentaries on each other, offering in this collected format a cumulative mosaic that was only fragmentary before. Volume editors Glasrud and Searles provide introductions to the volume and to each of its four parts, surveying recent scholarship and offering an interpretive framework. The bibliography that closes the book will also commend itself as a valuable tool for further research.

A comprehensive history of the barriers faced by students from marginalized racial, ethnic, and religious groups to gain access to predominantly white colleges and universities—and how these students responded to these barriers. Affirmative action in college admission is one of the most contested initiatives in contemporary federal policy, from its beginnings in the 1960s through the 2014 lawsuit alleging that Harvard discriminates against Asian American applicants. Supporters point out that using race and ethnicity as a criterion for admission helps remediate some of the effects of racist practices on minorities, including restrictions on college admissions. Opponents insist that the practice violates civil rights laws that prohibit racial discrimination and that it reenacts the historic racial bias of colleges. In Unwelcome Guests, Harold S. Wechsler and Steven J. Diner argue that discrimination in college admissions has a long and troubling history in the United States. Institutions of higher learning have vigorously sought to shape their mission and the experiences of their undergraduate students by paying careful attention to race and religion in admissions decisions. Post–World War I institutions devised exclusionary mechanisms that disadvantaged African Americans and other minority students for much of the century. Wechsler and Diner explore how American colleges and universities sought to restrict enrollment of students they considered undesirable. How, they ask, did these practices change over time? And how did underrepresented students cope with this discrimination—and with the indifference, bare tolerance, or outright hostility of some of their professors and peers? Tracing the efforts of people from underrepresented racial, ethnic, and religious groups to attend mainstream colleges, Wechsler and Diner also look at how these students fared after graduation, paying particular attention to Black women and men. Unwelcome Guests illuminates a critically important aspect of the history of American colleges and universities but also addresses policy debates about affirmative action and racial/ethnic diversity in colleges today. This profound history of the limits on college access over decades of discrimination will help readers recognize and understand the central role of race in the history of American higher education.

The proof of any group's importance to history is in the detail, a fact made plain by this informative book's day-by-day documentation of the impact of African Americans on life in the United States. One of the easiest ways to grasp any aspect of history is to look at it as a continuum. African American History Day by Day: A Reference Guide to Events provides just such an opportunity. Organized in the form of a calendar, this book allows readers to see the dates of famous births, deaths, and events that have affected the lives of African Americans and, by extension, of America as a whole. Each day features an entry with information about an important event that occurred on that date. Background on the highlighted event is provided, along with a link to at least one primary source document and references to books and websites that can provide more information. While there are other calendars of African American history, this one is set apart by its level of academic detail. It is not only a calendar, but also an easy-to-use reference and learning tool.