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.

Later court-martialed and dishonorably discharged, Flipper fought to clear his name, and a bill 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, this 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." Flipper died in 1940 without vindication, but he was posthumously granted an honorable discharge and Presidential pardon.
Read more at Featured Documents…

Today’s Document from the National Archives