Member of an Elite Group

Born on February 11, 1920, Daniel “Chappie” James was raised in a family of modest means in Pensacola, Florida. His grandmother was the highly respected founder of a private school that produced a steady stream of success-bound African Americans for more than 40 years. James’ mother, Lillie Anna, encouraged her children to follow their dreams and, in her words, “be packed and ready to jump on board when the train pulls into the station.”

James’ passion was airplanes. When he was 17 years old, he considered enlisting in the Navy as a path to becoming a pilot, but was told African Americans could only be cooks or stewards. He then decided to enroll at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. His academic goal was a degree in physical education, but he also knew that Tuskegee had started a government-funded civil pilot training program, and he immediately enrolled in it.

In 1940, the government converted the civil program into one designed to train Blacks for segregated flying units in the Army Air Force. By the time it ended in 1946, the Tuskegee program created an elite group of just under 1,000 black pilots, and James was one of them. He proved to be a remarkably skilled airman, and his first assignment, in 1943, was to train more pilots. He was then deployed to an Army Air Force unit in Ohio. James’ final World War II assignment was with a unit stationed in the Philippines.

President Truman signed an order integrating the armed forces in 1948. While this marked the end of the black flying units, it did not mean the end for black pilots in the military. The Air Force (no longer a branch of the Army) put James in charge of an integrated fighter-bomber squadron in the Philippines.

James flew his first mission as a combat fighter pilot in Korea. Between 1950 and 1951, he completed 101 missions, first in the legendary F-51 Mustang and then in the Air Force’s first jet, the F-80. When the Korean War ended in 1951, James was deployed to Otis Air Force Base in Massachusetts as an interceptor pilot, operations officer, and squadron commander. At Otis, James earned the rank of Major and had a chance to exhibit abilities beyond piloting. Sent out into the civilian world to perform community relations work, he was named “Young Man of the Year” for 1954 by the Massachusetts Junior Chamber of Commerce.

James next made a career decision to attend the Air Force Air Command and Staff College in Alabama. Graduating in 1957, he was assigned to Air Force Headquarters in Washington, where he remained until 1960, when he was sent to an Air Force unit at the Royal Air Force base in Bentwaters, England. There, he rose from wing operations director to squadron commander, and then to deputy wing commander. In 1964, James was assigned to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, serving as director of operations training and deputy commander for operations.

Service in a New War

Meanwhile, a new war had began in Vietnam, and it was escalating in intensity. In 1966, James was stationed at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand, serving first as deputy commander for operations and then as wing vice commander. These were not desk jobs: he would fly 78 combat missions from Ubon. A signal event in James’ Vietnam tour of duty took place on January 2, 1967, when he served as a flight leader for Operation Bolo, a secret mission designed to trick North Vietnamese fighters into engaging the F-4 Phantoms they had learned to avoid. Seven North Vietnamese jets were shot down, the most in a single mission during the war.

Late in 1967, his tour in southeast Asia completed, James was deployed to Elgin Air Force Base in Florida as vice wing commander. While at Elgin, James ventured into the public realm once more, giving presentations on the war and describing the Air Force’s success in providing opportunities for minorities. His career then took a giant leap forward in 1969 when the Air Force promoted him to the rank of Brigadier General and put him in command of Wheelus Air Force Base in Libya. There, James showed yet another side of his abilities. Faced with a demand from Libya to shut down base operations, he handled the affair like a seasoned diplomat.

In 1970, James returned to the Pentagon where he was given a succession of ever more prestigious positions. In March 1974, he became a Major General, but not for long. Just seven months later, he was elevated to the rank of lieutenant general and named Vice Commander of the Military Airlift Command, the huge, far-flung organization responsible for flying U.S. forces, equipment, supplies, and materials around the world. James’ career reached its peak in 1977 when he became the first black military officer to attain the rank of four-star general, and was put in charge of NORAD, the North American Air Defense Command, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

During this period, James began to experience increasingly serious heart problems. After serving briefly as a special assistant to the Air Force Chief of Staff, he had no choice but to retire. He passed away in Colorado Springs in 1978 at the age of 58. Although his life was cut tragically short, his career in the Air Force was long and distinguished. In addition to the Distinguished Service Medal, his honors included the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, a Presidential Unit Citation, and several honorary degrees. Daniel “Chappie” James blazed a trail of distinction for African Americans in the military.

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Breaking Ground at West Point

Flipper was born in Thomasville, Georgia, on March 21, 1856. The child of two slaves, Festus and Isabelle (or Issabella) Flipper, he, too, was a slave until the Emancipation Proclamation declared him free in 1863. His father subsequently became a successful shoemaker in Thomasville. There were five Flipper children, all boys. His brother Joseph became a church leader and college president, Carl became a college professor, Emory became a physician, and Festus, Jr., took over the shoe business and served as a prominent civic leader.

Flipper learned to read with the help of a fellow former slave. Along with many other Blacks in his position, he attended American Missionary Association schools, doing well throughout his student career and gaining admission to Atlanta University. But Flipper had bigger plans: with the help of U.S. Representative James C. Freeman, he obtained a prestigious appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, and in 1873, became only the third black cadet to enter its rigorous program of Army officer training. Holding up under constant pressure and prejudice, and ostracized by most of his fellow cadets, he graduated in 1877, the first African American to do so. An inveterate author throughout his life, he told the story of his four years at West Point in The Colored Cadet at West Point, published the year after his graduation.

At West Point, the Army had no choice but to integrate Flipper into its officers-in-training program, but when the time came to give him his commission, it reverted to its segregationist past and assigned him to the 10th Cavalry, a regiment of the black enlisted men commonly known as the Buffalo Soldiers. As part of this unit, Flipper was sent to a series of Army posts in Texas and Oklahoma. At West Point, Flipper had studied civil engineering, so for the most part, he found himself overseeing road construction, draining swamps, and stringing telegraph lines. But Flipper also served in battle. In 1880, he received a commendation for distinguished performance during a harsh campaign to defeat a rebellious band of Apaches.

From “Dishonor” to Distinction

Flipper’s next assignment, in 1881, would be his last. Posted to Fort Davis, Texas, he was named quartermaster, or manager, of the commissary. The enlisted men at Fort Davis were all African American, but until the arrival of Flipper, all the officers were white. Not surprisingly, several of these officers took an active dislike to Flipper, and less than a year after his arrival, accused him of embezzling a large sum of money from the commissary. In a court martial, Flipper defended himself vigorously and won acquittal, but the tribunal found him guilty of “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman” and ordered his dishonorable discharge from the Army.

Flipper was incensed, and never ceased trying to clear his name. Neither, however, did he let the injustice of his discharge prevent him from moving on with his life. Resilient, confident, and ambitious, Flipper decided to remain in the southwest and use the skills and knowledge he had gained at West Point and in the Army to forge a career as a civil engineer. Over the next five decades, he would find great success in this enterprise and others.

Flipper’s first positions after discharge from the Army were as cartographer for a Mexican bank and as a mining engineer. Demonstrating his acute, far-ranging mind, by 1892, he had become fluent in Spanish and an expert on southwest land issues. This put him in a position to publish (under another man’s name) a book on the unique laws governing property in Mexico and the southwest, a work that for many years would be recognized as the standard reference on the subject. He also gained appointment as a Department of Justice special agent in land disputes.

In 1901, Flipper moved across the border to Mexico to work for American mining interests. There, he made the acquaintance of Albert B. Fall, a wealthy and powerful landowner from southern New Mexico. Their relationship would turn out to be both a curse and a blessing for Flipper. When New Mexico attained statehood in 1912, Fall was elected one of its first two senators, and Flipper began moving in very powerful circles. When President Harding appointed Fall Secretary of the Interior, Flipper was given the job of overseeing development of the railway system in Alaska. But Flipper’s association with Fall became a liability in 1923 when Fall was named the central figure in the historic Teapot Dome oil scandal. Flipper opted to leave the United States for a time, and he moved to Venezuela to resume work as a mining engineer. There, never at rest, he wrote a book on Venezuelan property law.

At age 74, Flipper moved back to the United States in 1931 to live with his brother Joseph in Atlanta. During the last years of his life, he continued petitioning the Army to remove the dishonorable discharge from his record, but he was rebuffed each time. He died in 1940, but on the basis of historical research performed by his niece, the Army finally issued Flipper an honorable discharge and reburied his remains with full military honors in 1976. President Bill Clinton granted him a posthumous pardon in 1999, and a bust of him now stands at West Point. But Flipper would probably have found his greatest satisfaction when a book he wrote in 1916 was finally published in 1963. It was the story of his life, The Negro Frontiersman: The Western Memoirs of Henry O. Flipper.

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1848-1933  John Robert Clifford published the leading African American newspaper of its era, and as the first black attorney admitted to the West Virginia state bar, he won a trailblazing victory in Williams v. Board of Education that found discriminatory practices in public education illegal.

Studies in Chicago

Clifford was born in Williamsport, Virginia, in 1848, to a family of free Blacks who had inhabited the area for generations. Because the school system was segregated and there were no black schools in the region, he was sent to Chicago in the early 1860s to study. At age 15, Clifford enlisted with the United States Colored Troops and served in the Civil War from 1864 to 1865 with the 13th U.S. Heavy Artillery. Following his military service, he took courses in writing at a school in Wheeling, West Virginia, and then taught other African Americans to write in West Virginia and Ohio.

The West Virginia town of Harpers Ferry, site of the historic slave uprising of 1859, was by then home to a new school formed to serve the area’s African American population, Storer College. Clifford enrolled in the early 1870s, and graduated from Storer’s teaching department in 1875. He then taught at the Sumner School, a segregated black public school in Martinsburg, where he soon became principal, but his interests moved beyond education. In 1882, while still teaching at Sumner, Clifford established a weekly newspaper, The Pioneer Press, with a national and predominantly African American readership. He published the paper until 1917, when he was forced to close it by the federal government due to his criticisms of U.S. policy in World War I. The Press was the longest-running weekly of its time.

The law was the next object of Clifford’s interest. Under the then prevalent apprenticeship system of legal training, he studied under J. Nelson Wysner, a white attorney in Martinsburg, and became the first African American in West Virginia history to be accepted to the bar in 1887. In the course of his ensuing legal career, Clifford was associated with two significant racial discrimination cases, and brought both as far as the state Supreme Court of Appeals.

An Anti-Discrimination Pioneer

In Martin v. Board of Education, Clifford brought West Virginia’s first legal challenge of public school segregation to the Supreme Court of Appeals. The Martins were the only Blacks in a white region of the state that offered no separate school for black children. Thomas Martin, insisting on his children’s right to an education, petitioned to have them attend the local whites-only school. The court, however, ruled in 1896 that the children were not permitted to attend the white school, the consequences for their education notwithstanding. The state’s segregated schools policy, thus affirmed, would endure until the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas in 1954, which held that separate black schools were inherently unequal and, therefore, unconstitutional.

Clifford returned to the state Supreme Court in 1898 with Williams v. Board of Education of Tucker County. This case challenged discriminatory practices by the Tucker County Board of Education, which, in an effort to economize, had reduced the school year term from eight to five months for the black schools in the district, while leaving the white schools’ term unchanged. Clifford advised Carrie Williams, an African American teacher in one of those schools, to go on teaching for the full term, knowing that the Board of Education would refuse to pay her for the additional three months. He then sued the Board for back pay, and took the case to the Supreme Court. In the first anti-discrimination ruling in the history of the United States, the court found in favor of Williams.

With the development of the incipient civil rights movement, Clifford joined with his friend W.E.B. Du Bois and other activist pioneers in the formation of the Niagara Movement in 1905. This movement was a response to the theories of Booker T. Washington, another pioneer, who reasoned that the key to advancing the civil rights of African Americans was to work within the white-dominated system for incremental and gradual change. Washington’s philosophy had gained him many supporters in the white political community, and even an invitation from President Theodore Roosevelt to visit the White House. The Niagara Movement, named for its first meeting’s venue in Canada near Niagara Falls, argued for rapid and immediate change without accommodation or conciliation.

Clifford organized the second annual meeting, and the first in the United States, held in 1906 in Harpers Ferry at Storer College, his alma mater. In recognition of the 1859 revolt, participants held a vigil honoring John Brown’s uprising. The Niagara Movement, which is widely considered to have been the foundation of the modern Civil Rights Movement, eventually gave rise to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909. At that point, Clifford disassociated himself from the organization, in part because he objected to the use of the word “colored” in its name.

In all, Clifford practiced law for 45 years, becoming active in politics at both the state and national level. He was the first Vice-President of the American Negro Academy, and served as President of the National Independent League. Clifford died at the age of 85 in 1933, and was initially buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Martinsburg. His body was reinterred in Arlington National Cemetery in recognition of his Civil War service. Recent scholarly research and historical work have preserved his legacy for future generations. The J.R. Clifford Project presents re-enactments of the Williams trial, and his life and career were scrupulously detailed in the 2007 study “Don’t Flinch nor Yield an Inch” by historian Connie Park Rice. Clifford was also honored with a U.S. Postal Service stamp in 2009 as part of the Civil Rights Commemorative Stamp Series.

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Born to Ride

Matthews was born in Greenville, Alabama, on August 7, 1894. His family moved to Mansfield, Ohio, when he was still young, and he grew up there close to horses and riding. Early jobs included delivering newspapers, which he did by riding a pony, and stable work. While working at a racetrack in Lexington, Kentucky, he met African American soldiers serving in the U.S. Army’s 10th Cavalry, the original unit known as “Buffalo Soldiers.”

The Army was segregated at that time, and black soldiers were organized into special units that gained this name, probably from Native Americans’ reactions to their dark curly hair and as a response to their valor, skills, and fierce bravery in battle. The most likely sources are the Apache, Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Comanche tribes who revered the native buffalo. While numerous black troops fought in the Civil War and were often organized into separate segregated units, the Buffalo Soldiers were distinctive in that they were formed during peacetime to serve as regular Army regiments. The designation would ultimately grow to include six Cavalry Regiments: the 9th, 10th, 24th, 25th, 27th, and 28th. There were also a number of infantry regiments comprised of black troops.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the American west was still wild territory, and the Army was engaged in conflicts with both hostile Native Americans and various Mexican forces, although friendly tribal members were employed as guides. The Buffalo Soldiers served admirably during this period, beginning with the Apache and Indian Wars spanning the southwest and Great Plains regions, and also assisting with duties such as road building and guarding postal service deliveries. Comprised entirely of black enlisted men, they were usually commanded by white officers, with occasional African Americans leading. At times, they were even called in to help with civil disturbances, as in Wyoming’s Johnson County War in 1892. Later in the decade, they served as some of the original rangers in national parks in Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia in the Sierra Nevada range of California, building some of the original trails and roads. They were instrumental in the settling of the west at this time of massive expansion and collectively earned some 20 Medals of Honor in recognition of their service.

These black regiments were subsequently part of the Spanish-American War, expeditions into Mexico, and the Philippine-American War at the turn of the century, and ultimately served until the Army’s official integration, which began under President Harry S. Truman in 1948. The last all-black unit in the U.S. military was disbanded in 1954. The term came to be used proudly to describe any all-black unit, tracing its history to the original formation of the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments.

Although Matthews was only 15 years old at the time of his first encounter with the 10th Cavalry, he arranged for forged documents that showed him to be the minimum enlistment age of 17. He formally joined the Army in Columbus, Ohio, that year and completed basic training. His first posting was in the Arizona territory at Fort Huachuca. Matthews distinguished himself with his superior marksmanship, and in 1916, he was assigned to a Mexican campaign to capture the infamous revolutionary leader Pancho Villa, led by General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing.

With the outbreak of World War I, the U.S. Cavalry was deemed unnecessary for the European theater, and Matthews’ 10th Regiment stayed posted at home for the duration. He met and married his wife, Genevieve, in about 1929, with whom he would have four daughters and a son, and was transferred to Virginia’s Fort Myer in 1931. While there, he performed various duties such as escorting King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of England on their White House visit to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was also responsible for the presidential stable of horses and played on the polo team, and in an effort to sell war bonds, mounted horse shows. As a member of the Buffalo Soldiers’ drum and bugle corps, he played at Arlington National Cemetery for burial ceremonies. Matthews fought in World War II in the South Pacific, at the Battle of Saipan, and earned the rank of 1st Sergeant during that tour of duty.

After the Battle

Matthews retired from the Army shortly before President Truman’s integration measures, at which time the Buffalo Soldiers were formally disbanded. But he continued to be acknowledged as a source of living history and recollection about their vibrant past. He became a security guard, rising to chief of the guards at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, before fully retiring in 1970. Genevieve died in 1986, but Matthews continued in fine health and enjoyed his status as Buffalo Soldier emeritus. He met with President Bill Clinton at the White House in 1994, and joined a ceremony commemorating the Buffalo Soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery at the age of 103, in 1997. In 2002, he met with Secretary of State Colin Powell on the occasion of his 108th birthday. Powell had succeeded in creating a monument to the Buffalo Soldiers in 1992 as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in Leavenworth, Kansas.

Matthews developed glaucoma in his later years, and was partially blind by age 109 and fully blind at 111. He finally succumbed to pneumonia at age 111, passing away in Washington, DC, on September 6, 2005. He was the oldest living former Buffalo Soldier. Survived by three of his children, nine grandchildren, and 17 great-grandchildren, he was appropriately buried in Arlington National Cemetery, joining other military heroes and pioneers of all races.

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1877-1970  Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. dedicated his entire life and career to the military, beginning at a time when African Americans were consigned to support service roles with no command authority over whites. He rose to the rank of full General, advised the Army on integration strategies, and in the process contributed to the dismantling of segregation policies and laws throughout America, making him a hero in both realms.

An Early Volunteer

Davis was born on July 1, 1877 in Washington, D.C. Little is known about his early life, but his family was comfortably middle-class, he attended the M Street High School, and went on to enter college in 1897 at Howard University. The Spanish-American War was officially declared on April 25, 1898. Davis left school to volunteer for service, joining the 8th U.S. Volunteer Infantry as a First Lieutenant. The experience must have agreed with the young man, because immediately upon mustering out of the volunteer corps in 1899 he enlisted in the Regular Army, joining the 9th U.S. Cavalry as a Private. He was stationed at Fort Duchesne, Utah.

Davis made fast initial progress through the ranks, and received his commission as a Second Lieutenant in 1901. He was assigned to duty in the Philippine Islands, still with the 9th Cavalry, but was then reassigned to the 10th Cavalry and returned with that unit to the U.S. where he served as Adjutant at Fort Washakie, Wyoming. He was promoted to First Lieutenant in 1905, and in September of that year was appointed a Professor of Military Science and Tactics at Wilberforce University in Ohio. Davis remained there until 1909, followed by a brief tour of duty at Fort Ethan Allen in Vermont, when he was detailed to Monrovia, Liberia as Military Attaché.

Davis returned to the U.S. after three years duty in Africa in 1912, at which time he was posted to garrison and border patrol duty in the West, including Wyoming and the Arizona Territory. The year 1915 brought him back to Wilberforce. In 1917, he began another three-year tour of duty in the Philippines as Supply Officer, during which time he achieved the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

When Davis ended this Philippine tour in 1920, he was assigned to duty at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, again as a Professor of Military Science and Tactics. He taught at Tuskegee exclusively for four years, and then became Instructor of the 372nd Infantry of the Ohio National Guard in Cleveland in 1924. After a brief year back at Wilberforce from 1929 to 1930, Davis was detailed on special duty with the U.S. Department of State for Liberian affairs, at which time he was promoted to Colonel. Subsequent teaching tours alternated between Tuskegee and Wilberforce and lasted intermittently for the next seven years. During this period, he was placed on occasional detached service in Europe with the Pilgrimage of War Mothers and Widows, for which he received a letter of commendation from the Secretary of War.

The First Black General

In 1937, Davis was assigned as an instructor and in 1938 Commanding Officer of the 369th Infantry of the New York National Guard, his first independent command. Two years later, in 1940, he was promoted to Brigadier General, becoming the first black soldier to hold the rank of General in the Army. In 1941 he reported for duty as a Brigade Commander with the 2nd Cavalry Division in Fort Riley, Kansas. Later that year, he was assigned duty as Assistant to the Inspector General in Washington, D.C. where he would continue to serve intermittently for the duration of his career. In 1942, with the arrival of U.S. forces in Great Britain and the escalation of World War II, Davis was assigned special duty with the European Theater of Operations and named Advisor on Negro Problems. He became Special Assistant to the Commanding General in the Communications Zone of the European Theater in 1944, stationed in Paris, France. He subsequently worked to monitor racial relations and conflicts both in Europe and at home, investigated disturbances, and boosted African American moral, ultimately persuading the Army to experiment with limited integration.

Davis retired in 1948 with 50 years of loyal service. That same year, President Harry S. Truman issued an order which forbade discriminatory practices in the armed forces, relying on the foundation built by Davis’ work. He died in Chicago, Illinois on November 26, 1970, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. He was awarded an honorary L.L.D. Degree from Atlanta University, the Croix de Guerre with Palm from France, and the Grade of Commander of the Order of the Star of Africa from Liberia. His decorations and honors included the Bronze Star and the Distinguished Service Medal for “…exceptionally meritorious service to the Government in a duty of great responsibility… on matters pertaining to Negro troops. The initiative, intelligence, and sympathetic understanding displayed by him in conducting countless investigations concerning individual soldiers, troop units and other components of the War Department brought about a fair and equitable solution to many important problems which have since become the basis of far-reaching War Department policy.”

Davis was one of just six black officers in the Regular Army in the 86-year period from the Civil War to World War II. There are now approximately 10,000 due in part to his efforts to secure just treatment and rewards for black soldiers, and despite a frustrating history of so-called “safe assignments” designed to keep him from command over white troops. Davis’ son, Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., became the fourth African American graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and America’s second black general officer, as a General of the U.S. Air Force and commander of the Tuskegee Airmen, a fitting legacy for a father and a great leader.

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1798-1866

Early Wanderlust

Beckwourth was born in 1798 in Frederick County, Virginia. His father was a white military officer; his mother was a slave who bore him 13 children. His father raised Beckwourth as his own son, and signed his emancipation papers. While Beckwourth was still a teenager, the family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, at that time, the limit of the western frontier. After completing four years of school, the boy was apprenticed to a stern blacksmith. In 1822, following an altercation with the blacksmith, he abandoned his apprenticeship and family to join an expedition to the lead mines in the Fever River, Wisconsin, area. He then set out for New Orleans, but had difficulty finding work there as a free Black.

Then in 1823, he signed on for an expedition with the Rocky Mountain Fur Trading Company, which took him deep into the western wilderness. There, he perfected the skills that would serve him as an adventurer: he became a sharpshooter, and was equally adept with a bowie knife and a tomahawk. He also became acquainted with the local Native American tribes, and began a lifelong pattern of marrying often: during this period, he wed two Blackfoot women, only to desert them.

In 1825, he was captured by the warrior Crow tribe and began a six-year sojourn living with them. Beckwourth distinguished himself in battle with enemy tribes and earned the rank of War Chief. And he married no fewer than 10 Crow women, including one named Pine Leaf who was herself an esteemed warrior. But he abandoned her and the Crow shortly thereafter. He tried his hand at running two trading posts before returning to St. Louis in 1836 to find it much changed. A brief visit back to the Crow nation earned him the malicious charge of having spread the smallpox epidemic that decimated the Plains Indians in 1837.

By this time, several factors had diminished the fur trade. Fashions had changed, reducing demand. Wildlife had been depleted, and the Crow’s hostilities toward white settlers and their trading partner tribes had taken a toll. The Rocky Mountain Fur Trading Company no longer had need of Beckwourth’s services. But the U.S. Army, fighting the Seminole tribe in Florida, did. Beckwourth was recruited, along with other Missouri mountain men and Indian fighters to join the campaign, but he found it lacked adventure.

Returning to St. Louis, Beckwourth was hired by an acquaintance with a trading company in the Platte River region of Colorado who would represent him to the Cheyenne. After several years, he headed south to Taos, New Mexico, and traded on his own. He also married Luisa Sandoval. The couple then founded their own settlement called Pueblo in Colorado, where a town of that name still stands. Stifled by the more established Bent Brothers who had a near monopoly on trading in the Colorado region, Beckwourth decided in 1844 to seek more opportunities in California. But 1845 saw the outbreak of hostilities between the white settlers there and the Mexican government; and with the declaration of war between the United States and Mexico, he and several associates fled, gathering some 1,800 horses from Mexican ranchers on the way and bringing them back to Colorado. There, he found that Luisa had given up on him and remarried, and he relocated to Santa Fe where he established a hotel with a partner. In 1847, he received news of a massacre of all the white settlers in Taos, joined the retaliatory force, and witnessed the hangings of the Indian and Mexican rebels there.

The Beckwourth Pass

Beckwourth decided to return to California and the burgeoning gold rush, and became chief scout for General John C. Fremont in 1848. Several miles northwest of present day Reno, Nevada, he found a passage across the treacherous Sierra Nevada Mountains into the lush interior of the California gold country that was easier to navigate than the notorious Donner Pass. The new Beckwourth Pass would be used by thousands of settlers and gold prospectors, and was chosen by the Western Pacific Railway as its gateway to the west. Beckwourth then signed on for one of the mail routes on the west coast. At a rest stop at the home of his friends, the Reed family, he accidentally discovered the worst mass murder of the era and barely escaped with his own life. In 1854 and 1855, Beckwourth dictated his autobiography, The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, Mountaineer, Scout, and Pioneer, and Chief of the Crow Nation of Indians, to a Justice of the Peace in the California gold fields. It was published in the United States in 1856, in England the following year, and in a French translation in 1860. While riddled with exaggerations and errors of factual detail, the overall impression of someone who participated in or witnessed seemingly every major event in the opening of the west has largely been borne out by historical study.

In 1866, Beckwourth fought his last battle in the Cheyenne War, and was subsequently engaged by the U.S. government as an interpreter in peace talks with the Crow. The Crow hosted him at a ceremonial dinner that year, and asked him to rejoin the tribe and lead it back to prominence. Beckwourth refused, and returned home to Denver where he had become a storekeeper. He soon died of mysterious causes. Legend holds that the Crow poisoned him, thinking that if they couldn’t have his leadership in person, they would have the next best thing by thus capturing his spirit on their behalf. Whether or not true, the story captures the essential adventure of this true pioneer’s life.

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Passion for Freedom

Poor was born into slavery, but succeeded in buying his freedom in 1769 at the age of approximately 19, for 27 pounds sterling (at the time, the equivalent of a working man’s full year’s salary). He married a free black woman named Nancy and together they had a son. Poor’s obvious passion for freedom must have been immediately frustrated; he and his family inhabited a world in which African Americans could attend church, but were forced to sit in the balcony separated from Whites on the main floor. A free black man, Poor was permitted to work and earn wages, but very few jobs were available for those of his race. And any earnings he might have received would have been taxed, although he, his wife, and his son would never earn the right to vote in the democracy he was to bravely help create.

In spite of these oppressive cultural and legal restrictions, Poor (at roughly 25 years of age and a resident of the Massachusetts colony) volunteered in 1775 to join in the Revolutionary War with the Continental forces. He served in a Massachusetts Militia company commanded by Benjamin Ames. Some 5,000 other black men, both free and slaves, served on the side of the “Patriot” Revolutionary Army, in addition to hundreds more in the Navy. However, thousands of other African Americans fought on the side of the British due to the more strenuous efforts by these loyalist forces to recruit and reward them for fighting. Most often, this came in the form of a promise that any black slaves (especially those belonging to Patriot masters) would be freed in return for fighting. As proclaimed by Lord Dunmore, Governor of Virginia:

“And I hereby further declare all indented servants, Negroes, or others (appertaining to Rebels) free, that are able and willing to bear arms, they joining His Majesty’s Troops, as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing the Colony to a proper sense of their duty, to this Majesty’s crown and dignity.”

More often than not, the promise was empty; many if not most of these “bribed” soldiers were abandoned by the retreating British forces, or even actively returned to their former owners at the end of the war.

In the historic and strategically important Battle of Bunker Hill (then known as the Battle of Charleston), only some three dozen Blacks fought. Of them, Salem Poor would emerge as a distinctive and valorous warrior. On June 17, 1775, Poor fired the shot that killed Lieutenant Colonel James Abercrombie, a high-ranking British officer. The effect of his death was to cripple the morale of the enemy force, turning the tide of battle.

Furthering his record of distinction, Poor also fought at Valley Forge, White Plains, Saratoga, and Monmouth. In acknowledgment of his exceptional service to the cause of liberty, 14 officers, including Colonel William Prescott, petitioned the General Court of Massachusetts to honor his heroism, and bestow a monetary reward in recognition of his achievements. The petition stated in part:

“A Negro called Salem Poor of Colonel Frye’s regiment, Captain Ames’ company, in the late battle at Charleston, behaved like an experienced officer, as well as an excellent soldier. It would be tedious to go into more detail regarding his heroic conduct. We only beg leave to say, in the person of this said Negro centers a brave and gallant soldier.”

Active Climate of Oppression

The Court failed to take any action on the petition. This passive failure to recognize an African American’s achievement would soon become an active climate of oppression. In marked contrast to the British loyalist strategy, the Patriot leaders often resisted black participation in the war. In 1775, General George Washington, Commander of the Continental forces and “the father of our country” in today’s popular imagination, ordered that no additional Blacks were to be recruited into his army. Several months later, Washington decreed that even volunteer reenlistments by Blacks were forbidden. This position was reversed only under duress, when Continental Army troops dropped to dangerously low levels compared to the British-bribed black forces.

Poor reacted to these horrible events with a signal act of selfless dedication;  he continued to fight bravely with the Continental force on behalf of the American cause of liberty, a concept that clearly held greater meaning for Poor than it did for the nascent country’s leaders.  This patriot and soldier is remembered for his great contribution to the war that won America its freedom, but which would prove to be only a first step on the path of generations of African Americans to ultimately succeed in winning theirs.

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A Passion for Science

McNair was born on October 21, 1950, in Lake City, South Carolina. His father was an auto body repairman and his mother a high school teacher. Instilling in McNair and his two brothers the belief that education would be their path to success, they were richly rewarded when year after year, McNair excelled at his studies.

The other element of the family’s formula for success was hard work, and each summer, McNair would work on a farm to provide the family with extra income. The boy was captivated when in 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, into orbit. From then on, enthralled with space, McNair closely followed the Soviet and American space programs. Meanwhile, exceptionally skilled in science and math, he was named valedictorian of his 1967 high school class, and won a scholarship to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro.

At Greensboro, McNair developed a passion for physics and won his first measure of national recognition as a Ford Foundation Fellow and Presidential Scholar. He received a B.A. in physics with high honors in 1971, and was awarded a scholarship for graduate study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At MIT, he honed in on a specialty within physics, the development of advanced chemical lasers. In 1975, he was named MIT’s Omega Psi Phi Scholar of the Year, and had the opportunity to conduct research with the best laser scientists and engineers in the world at Les Houches Centre for Physics in the French Alps.

McNair suffered a near calamity while working toward his MIT doctorate when two years’ worth of research results were lost. Some students would have given up in despair, but McNair picked up the pieces and simply performed his experiments again, with improved results. McNair’s graduate advisor later remarked that such resiliency was typical of McNair. He succeeded in earning a Ph.D. from MIT in 1976, and accepted a position as physicist at Hughes Research Laboratories in California. That same year, McNair married Cheryl Moore, with whom he would have two children. At Hughes, McNair performed cutting-edge research on the use of lasers for space communication and the use of high-powered lasers for the separation of isotopes. He also did research into the physics behind martial arts, a subject of intense interest to him. While carrying a full academic schedule at MIT, he had earned a black-belt in karate and won several regional championships.

Physicist in Space

In 1978, McNair was suddenly presented with an opportunity to unite two passions—physics and space exploration—when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recruited a group of new astronauts for the Space Shuttle program. McNair almost failed to make the cut because of serious injuries he had suffered in a car accident, but NASA needed scientists like him to complement the jet pilots of the first generation of astronauts. In January 1978, McNair joined the astronaut training program in Houston, and one year later was qualified as a mission specialist on the Space Shuttle, then still under development.

The first shuttle flew in 1981, but McNair would not go into space until 1984. During this period, NASA used McNair’s engineering talents at its advanced avionics research laboratory. Finally, on February 3, 1984, McNair earned his space wings. He was a member of a crew of five on the Space Shuttle Challenger during a three-and-a-half-day mission. His role was to become the first astronaut to operate a high-tech boom used to release satellites, and to perform experiments on the chemical separation of substances in the microgravity of space. The mission earned the crew a place in history when it conducted the first untethered space walk by an astronaut.

During the Challenger’s 122 orbits on the 1984 mission, McNair realized his boyhood dream of space flight. He became one of the few human beings privileged to view Earth from almost 200 miles away, and to see the stars through the crystal-clear vacuum of space. He was energized and eagerly looked forward to his next mission, another flight on the Challenger scheduled two years into the future, the ill-fated mission dubbed STS 51-L.

McNair was one of seven astronauts aboard Challenger when it was launched just before noon on January 26, 1986. More than the usual number of children were watching on television because of the presence of the first school teacher astronaut, Christie McAuliffe, who was scheduled to conduct science activities from space with school children across the United States. For his part, McNair, an avid jazz musician, had taken along his instrument and planned to be the first person to play the saxophone in space.

The Challenger launch was given the go-ahead despite warnings from engineers that critical Space Shuttle components had not been tested at the low temperatures present that morning. These concerns proved justified: slightly more than a minute into the mission, a gasket in one of the Space Shuttle’s solid rocket boosters—the infamous O-ring—made brittle by the cold, failed. Rocket gases escaped and burned through the Space Shuttle’s external fuel tank, causing disintegration of the spacecraft. None of the astronauts survived.

McNair, then just 36 years old, left behind his wife, his two young children, and a life filled with promise. During the short time he lived, his accomplishments earning him honorary degrees from North Carolina A&T State University, Morris College, and the University of South Carolina. After his death, Cheryl McNair and survivors of other mission members founded the Challenger Center for Space Science Education. In 1989, the Department of Education initiated the Dr. Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program to support disadvantaged students, and in 2004, Congress awarded McNair the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.

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Farm to Sea

Miller was born in 1919 in Waco, Texas, the third of four sons of sharecroppers Conery and Henrietta Miller. He helped his father work the family cotton farm through early adulthood, while also using his unusual size and weight (five feet nine inches, and over 200 pounds) to play fullback on the Moore High School football team. The desire to earn money to help his family, as well as to experience more of the world beyond the farm, led Miller to enlist for a six-year tour of duty in the Navy as a Mess Attendant, Third Class, in 1939, the only classification permitted to African Americans at that time.

Miller did his basic training at the Naval Training Station in Norfolk, Virginia, and reported to his first duty station in November of that same year. He served as a mess attendant, for the most part waiting on tables in the dining facilities of the ammunition ship USS Pyro. Soon after, he transferred to the battleship USS West Virginia, continuing his mess attendant duties. There, he also became the West Virginia’s heavyweight boxing champion. A two-month temporary tour of duty in June and July of 1940 took Miller to the Secondary Battery Gunnery School aboard the USS Nevada, after which he returned to the West Virginia in August 1940.

On December 7, 1941, Miller was serving aboard the West Virginia, anchored in Peal Harbor, Hawaii. The Japanese attacked the U.S. fleet that day.

An Unlikely Hero

Miller arose at six o’clock that Sunday morning, and was collecting laundry on deck when the general quarters alarm sounded. No one had expected the attack, but within minutes the entire U.S. fleet was engulfed in a massive offensive by Japanese torpedo planes, bombers, and kamikaze fighters. In response, Miller went directly to his assigned battle station, the anti-aircraft battery magazine located amidships. However, the battery magazine had already been destroyed by Japanese torpedoes. Miller then went on deck, where amid smoke, fire, and explosions, and because of his physical size and strength, he was ordered to help carry wounded sailors to safer locations on the ship. Soon after, he was dispatched to the bridge by an officer to assist the ship’s Captain, Mervyn Bennion, who had been badly wounded. Miller helped carry Bennion off the bridge.

The same officer then saw two unmanned 50-caliber Browning anti-aircraft machine guns on deck. He called on two trained sailors to take charge, and instructed Miller to keep them supplied with ammunition. But when the officer was called away before the trained gunners could arrive, Miller manned one of the guns. Despite his lack of training, he drew on his early experience shooting rifles on the family farm, and by his own account, it came naturally: “It wasn’t hard. I just pulled the trigger and she worked fine.” Witnesses say his marksmanship was outstanding. He is generally credited with shooting down three Japanese planes, and some accounts estimate as many as six. But Miller’s heroic actions were brought to a halt by two armor-piercing bombs exploding on deck and five 18-inch torpedoes blasting into the West Virginia’s port side. He and the rest of the crew were ordered to abandon ship, which flooded below decks and sank in the harbor’s shallow water. In the course of the attack, 130 men died and 52 were wounded of the West Virginia’s 1,541 crewmembers.

Soon after, Miller was transferred to the cruiser USS Indianapolis, where he spent the next 17 months. He was commended by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox for bravery in the Pearl Harbor attack in 1942, and then received the Navy’s highest award for valor, the Navy Cross, from the Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, Chester W. Nimitz, who stated: “This marks the first time in this conflict that such high tribute has been made in the Pacific Fleet to a member of his race and I’m sure that the future will see others similarly honored for brave acts.” He received a hero’s welcome in Waco and Dallas on shore leave. Over the course of this part of his career, Miller was advanced to Mess Attendant, Second Class, and then First Class, and was promoted to Ship’s Cook, Third Class.

In the spring of 1943, Miller, then based in Bremerton, Washington, at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, was assigned to the newly built escort carrier USS Liscome Bay. The ship steamed into Pearl Harbor in late October to join the Northern Attack Force and Operation Galvanic. This invasion of the Gilbert Islands was a major component of the American strategy in the central Pacific theater, and began with the capture of Makin and Tarawa Islands in November. In the early morning of November 24, cruising near Butaritari Island, the Liscome Bay was struck near the stern by a torpedo from a Japanese submarine, which hit the carrier’s bomb magazine. Engulfed in flames within minutes, the ship sank with most of its crew still on board. Miller was not among the 272 rescued.

Along with the other missing sailors, Miller was officially presumed dead by the Navy in 1944. He earned numerous honors during his years of service, including the Purple Heart, the World War II Victory Medal, and the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal; and in 1973, the frigate USS Miller was commissioned by the Navy. Miller was one of four sailors recognized for serving with “bravery and distinction” by the Distinguished Sailors U.S. Postal Service stamp series in 2010.

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Enthusiastic About Education

Coleman was born and raised in rural Texas. She showed early enthusiasm for education, despite hurdles: one of 13 children, she devoted time to her siblings as well as to the fields during cotton picking season. Her father left for Oklahoma in 1891 to seek a less discriminatory environment. Her mother opted to keep the family rooted in Texas, relying on cotton picking and work as a laundress to support them.

Coleman finished eighth grade at the top of her class, and began working as a laundress, planning to earn enough for secondary school and college. She was only able to complete one semester, and in 1915 joined her brother in Chicago. There she trained as a manicurist, became known as an exceptionally good one, and associated with many of Chicago’s most successful African Americans. Her beauty also earned her admirers, including an older man named Claude Glenn whom she married but lived with for only a short period of time. Another early fan and supporter was Robert Abbott, publisher of the Chicago Defender newspaper and one of the first Black millionaires.

World War I veterans (including Coleman’s brother) were returning from Europe with stories of aviation, and tales of French female flyers.  Coleman found her defining challenge: she would become a pilot, despite the fact that female flyers were virtually non-existent in the United States and Black women could not hope to receive instruction.  Indeed, a series of U.S. schools rejected Coleman. On the advice of Abbott (and with financial assistance from him and others), she learned French at a local Berlitz school, found a higher-paying job, and saved as much money as possible toward training in France. In 1920 she enrolled at the Ecole d’Aviation des Freres Caudron.

Determined to Fly

The only non-Caucasian in her class, she learned to fly over seven months in a 27-foot biplane of flimsy construction.  Coleman saw a fellow student crash fatally, but persevered. She was the first Black woman to earn an international pilot’s license from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale, in 1921. Over the next two months, she refined her technique with private lessons, and returned home.

Coleman’s arrival in the U.S. was hailed by the Black press and aviation journals as a historic event. The Air Service News described her as “a full-fledged aviatrix, the first of her race.” But she realized she would need training as a stunt flier in order to earn a living. She returned to Europe for instruction. Back in the U.S., in full command of her skills, confidence, beauty, and daring, she made her debut in an air show in 1922 in New York sponsored by Abbott and the Chicago Defender. She then performed in air shows countrywide, earning fans and exposure for her daring and skill.

Fulfilling Dreams

Coleman worked selflessly to help other African Americans fulfill their dreams. She tried throughout her career to start a flying school, and refused to fly at locations that barred Blacks. And in a decision that would hurt her, she walked off a movie in which she had agreed to appear, produced and financed by African Americans, upon finding that the character presented (in her eyes) a derogatory image of Blacks. Now perceived as willful and unreliable, she had difficulty finding sponsors and support even within the African American community.

“Queen Bess,” as she had come to be known, persevered. She managed enough occasional exhibition flights to purchase an aging plane to use for her flying school. It crashed days later, leaving her in the hospital for three months and recuperating in Chicago for another 18.  Recovering her health and confidence, she announced to the Houston Post-Dispatch in 1925 that her goal was to turn “Uncle Tom’s cabin into a hangar by establishing a flying school.” Coleman began lecturing, spreading her message of inspiration.  She started a beauty parlor to raise funds, and received assistance from a wealthy friend to purchase a World War I Army surplus plane.

The day before her first scheduled appearance in the plane, Coleman and her mechanic went up for a test run. A wrench became fouled in the plane’s gears, causing it to go out of control and dive with the mechanic at the controls. Coleman was thrown out and fell to her death, while the plane crashed.  Over 10,000 mourners paid their respects to this heroic figure, who (in the words of the resolution requesting the stamp in her honor) “continues to inspire untold thousands, even millions of young persons with her sense of adventure, her positive attitude, and her determination to succeed.”

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