BLACK MEN OF VA L O R . . . and SON
Col. Frederic E. Davison, 50, was promoted to the rank of brigadier general after 27 years' service. Davison, deputy commander of the 199th Infantry Brigade in Vietnam, thus became the third Armed Forces' black general, and he is now the highest ranking black officer in command of troops.
The first Negro commander of a U.S. warship, Comdr. Samuel Lee Gravely Jr., was promoted to captain by the Navy, becoming the first Negro selected for captain as a line officer. Gravely is commander of a destroyer. He was born and educated in Richmond, Va., and served in the Navy during World War II and the Korean conflict. Later he was temporary commander of a destroyer.
A company of Black soldiers photographed during the Civil War.
Brigadier General Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., was the first Black man to reach that rank in the armed services. Little Known Facts About . . .
WEST POINT U.S. MILITARY ACADEMY
Lieutenant General Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. was chief of Staff of the United Nations Command in South Korea.
J. W. Smith was the first Black man to enter the United States Military Academy at West Point. Cadet Smith was subjected to humiliating ill treatment by white cadets. He was court martialed for breaking a cocoanut dipper over the head of a white cadet. He was dismissed from the academy for the offense. Henry O. Flipper was the next Black cadet, graduating in 1877. He was assigned to the 10th Cavalry.
CRISPUS ATTUCKS
Crispus Attucks, run-away slave was killed in the Boston Massacre March 5, 1770. Attucks was the first man of any race to give his life for American freedom.
Air Force Major Robt. H. Lawrence, Jr., the nation's first Black Astronaut Major Lawrence died when his F-104D Starfighter jet crashed in a California desert six months after his appointment to the program.
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