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After WWI, there were Congolese troops (who fought for France) occupying the Alsace region of Germany, When the inevitable happened, the offspring of African and German romances were later forcibly sterilized when the Nazis came to power.
And the 3 unknown black guys who had the guts to walk into a theater in south GA on a Friday night and sit in the white section with said theater packed out with adrenalin, testosterone white teens. I was there and it was the bravest thing I've ever seen.
Then there were the freedom riders albeit some whites rode those buses into hell with them.
This thread is about sharing information regarding your favorite, positive historical figures in Black History.
In 1877, Henry O. Flipper became the first African-American to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York
“Born into slavery in Thomasville, Georgia, on March 21, 1856, Henry Ossian Flipper was appointed to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1873. Over the next four years he overcame harassment, isolation, and insults to become West Point’s first African American graduate and the first African American commissioned officer in the regular U.S. Army. Flipper was stationed first at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, later served at Forts Elliott, Quitman, and Davis, Texas. He served as a signal officer and quartermaster, fought Apaches, installed telegraph lines, and supervised the building of roads. At Fort Sill, the young lieutenant directed the construction of a drainage system that helped prevent the spread of malaria. Still known as “Flipper’s Ditch,” the ditch is commemorated by a bronze marker at Fort Sill and the fort is listed as a National Historic Landmark.
In 1881, while serving at Fort Davis, Flipper’s commanding officer accused him of embezzling $3,791.77 from commissary funds. A court-martial found him not guilty of embezzlement but convicted him of conduct unbecoming an officer and ordered him dismissed from the Army.
After his dishonorable discharge, Flipper fought to clear his name as he pursued a career as an engineer and an expert on Spanish and Mexican land law. In 1898, a bill reinstating him into the Army and restoring his rank was introduced in Congress on his behalf. To bolster his case, he sent Congressman John A. T. Hull, chairman of the House Committee on Military Affairs, the letter displayed below along with a brief supporting the bill’s passage. Flipper’s letter to Hull is an eloquent statement asking Congress for “that justice which every American citizen has the right to ask.” The bill and several later ones were tabled, and Flipper died in 1940 without vindication, but in 1976, the Army granted him an honorable discharge, and in 1999, President Bill Clinton issued him a full pardon.” (via National Archives and Records Administration)
Flipper recounts his experiences at West Point and the details of his life in his autobiography The Colored Cadet at West Point
You know, there's a ( History ) forum on CD. Not sure what's this thread has to do with politics or controversies?
George Prioleau was chaplain of the 9th Cavalry of Buffalo Soldiers in the late 19th century. After witnessing inequality and mistreatment of his men, he publicly challenged the hypocrisy and racial line being drawn against black soldiers.
Born in 1856 to slave parents in Charleston, South Carolina, Prioleau earned his theology degree from Wilberforce University in Ohio. He was a teacher and served as an A. M. E. pastor and denominational leader for Ohio congregations, and in 1889 he became professor of theology and homiletics at Wilberforce. Six years later, President Grover Cleveland appointed him to replace Henry Plummer as chaplain of the 9th Cavalry, U. S. Army, with a rank of captain.
In 1898 upon the outbreak of the Spanish-American war, the 9th Cavalry left the western United States for the first time in its history and was deployed to bases in Georgia and Florida for military activities in Cuba and the Caribbean. Chaplain Prioleau was eager for an opportunity for African American soldiers to prove themselves on the field of battle, but he became ill with malaria and was unable to travel to Cuba with the rest of the 9th. Upon recovering from his illness, he served as a recruitment officer in the segregated South. While there, Prioleau was shocked by the racism the 9th faced on a daily basis.
Through public letters and editorials, Prioleau challenged racial segregation and attacked the hypocrisy of fighting a war for liberation in Cuba while the United States remained locked in a mindset of racism. When the 9th returned from the Spanish-American war, they were cheered and treated as war heroes in New York City, but in Missouri the 9th Cavalry was “unkindly and sneeringly received,” as recorded by Prioleau. They also found that they were unable to sit at numerous restaurants, while white soldiers were warmly greeted and allowed to eat free of charge.
Chaplain Prioleau vocally advocated that service in the United States Army provided a rare opportunity for young black men. However, in the end he concluded that patriotic duty and military service would not erase the color line in the minds of many whites. He served in the 9th Cavalry for 20 years before being transferred to the 10th Calvary and later the 25th Cavalry with a promotion to major, retiring in 1920. A year later, he helped found the Bethel A. M. E. Church in Los Angeles where he often preached without pay. He died in 1927 after falling from a ladder while painting the church.
Buck Franklin (1879–1960), son of a Chickasaw freedman (emancipated slave) Buck Franklin (shown here ca. 1899 with his older brother, Matthew) was named after his grandfather, who had been a slave of a Chickasaw family in Oklahoma. Buck Franklin became a lawyer, notably defending survivors of the Tulsa Riots in 1921 which had resulted in the murder of 300 African Americans.
The Coleman Manufacturing Company (1899–1904) was the first cotton mill in the United States owned and operated by African Americans, located in Concord, North Carolina.
The company was established in 1897 primarily by black North Carolinian capitalists. Their idea was to establish a cotton mill that would be entirely managed and operated by blacks, since all the cotton mills in North Carolina, and the South overall, would only employ blacks in menial positions.
Richard B. Fitzgerald was its first president, Edward A. Johnson its first vice-president (and was later president), and Warren C. Coleman was its first secretary, treasurer, and manager. The initial board of directors was S. C. Thompson, L. P. Berry, John C. Dancy, S. B. Pride, C. F. Meserve, and Robert McRae.
Pompey Factor (1849 – 1928) was a Black Seminole who served as a United States Army Indian Scout and received America's highest military decoration—the Medal of Honor—for his actions in the Indian Wars of the Western United States.
After having lived in Mexico for the past two decades, Factor and other Black Seminoles joined the US Army as Seminole-Negro Indian Scouts in August 1870, and served in the Red River War. On April 25, 1875, he was serving as a private by the Pecos River in Texas where, "[w]ith 3 other men, he participated in a charge against 25 hostiles while on a scouting patrol." A month later, on May 28, 1875, Factor was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the engagement. Two of the other men who took part in the charge, Isaac Payne and John Ward, both Black Seminoles, also received Medals of Honor.
In 1877, Factor deserted and returned to Mexico. He later requested a pardon and rejoined the army, eventually being discharged in November 1880.
Factor died at age 78 or 79 and was buried at the Seminole Indian Scout Cemetery in Brackettville, Texas.
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