Henry Ossian Flipper, 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 into slavery in Thomasville, Georgia, in 1856, becomes the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York on June 14, 1877.
Flipper was 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 to enslaved parents but came of age in Atlanta during Reconstruction. He was educated at American Missionary Association schools and Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University). In 1873, he was appointed to West Point. As he later wrote in his 1878 autobiography, The Colored Cadet at West Point, he was socially ostracized by white peers and professors during his four years there.
