Imagine being the “first” to do something, a person who has chosen to tread a path no one has ever walked before. Now envision that the course you have chosen is one that will make a lot of people not only uncomfortable but will cause some to actually hate you and do anything they can to keep you from reaching your goal. Furthermore, every time you reach a milestone someone will then try to take it away from you, or make an attempt to discount what you have accomplished.
Would you take the chance? I think that most would not, and if you did you would be one of the most courageous people around. Such is the case with Henry Ossian Flipper, the first African American to graduate from the United States Military Academy. Born to slaves in Thomasville, Georgia in 1856, Henry Flipper lived a life of milestones.
Although he was born into bondage, he became an exemplary student, achieving high marks and advancement at a school run by the American Missionary Association. After his initial schooling he entered Atlanta University (now Atlanta-Clark University), and continued his outstanding academic record, which led him to receive an appointment to West Point in 1873. The other cadets at the Point did not make Henry’s life easy.
He faced the constant struggle of discrimination, but in his memoirs he hinted that the most difficult barrier he endured was one of being alone; as an African American man at West Point he had no true peers since his white classmates refused to socialize .