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Flipper Graduates from West Point

When
1877
Where
West Point, New York
Part of
Henry Ossian Flipper graduates from West Point

Henry Ossian Flipper became the first African American to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1877.

Flipper, from Georgia, graduated 50th in a class of 76, earning a commission as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. This achievement followed the admission of the first black cadet, James Webster Smith, in 1870.

Sources

  1. Henry Ossian Flipper Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-13
  2. United States Military Academy Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-30

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.