Black Cadet in a White Bastion

Black Cadet in a White Bastion

Author: Brian Shellum

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2006-01-01

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 0803293151

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Examines the life of Charles Young, whose hard work, intellect, focus, and humor allowed him to overcome hazing, social ostracism, and academic difficulties to become the third black graduate of West Point and a colonel.


The Colored Cadet at West Point

The Colored Cadet at West Point

Author: Henry Ossian Flipper

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-12-10

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 162558377X

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Henry Ossian Flipper (21 March 1856 - 3 May 1940) was an American soldier, former slave, and the first African American to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1877, earning a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Army.


Black Officer in a Buffalo Soldier Regiment

Black Officer in a Buffalo Soldier Regiment

Author: Brian G. Shellum

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2010-02-01

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 0803268033

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An unheralded military hero, Charles Young (1864–1922) was the third black graduate of West Point, the first African American national park superintendent, the first black U.S. military attaché, the first African American officer to command a Regular Army regiment, and the highest-ranking black officer in the Regular Army until his death. Black Officer in a Buffalo Soldier Regiment tells the story of the man who—willingly or not—served as a standard-bearer for his race in the officer corps for nearly thirty years, and who, if not for racial prejudice, would have become the first African American general. Brian G. Shellum describes how, during his remarkable army career, Young was shuffled among the few assignments deemed suitable for a black officer in a white man’s army—the Buffalo Soldier regiments, an African American college, and diplomatic posts in black republics such as Liberia. Nonetheless, he used his experience to establish himself as an exceptional cavalry officer. He was a colonel on the eve of the United States’ entry into World War I, when serious medical problems and racial intolerance denied him command and ended his career. Shellum’s book seeks to restore a hero to the ranks of military history; at the same time, it informs our understanding of the role of race in the history of the American military.


Duty beyond the Battlefield

Duty beyond the Battlefield

Author: Le'Trice D. Donaldson

Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press

Published: 2020-01-31

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 0809337592

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In a bold departure from previous scholarship, Le’Trice D. Donaldson locates the often overlooked era between the Civil War and the end of World War I as the beginning of black soldiers’ involvement in the long struggle for civil rights. Donaldson traces the evolution of these soldiers as they used their military service to challenge white notions of an African American second-class citizenry and forged a new identity as freedom fighters willing to demand the rights of full citizenship and manhood. Through extensive research, Donaldson not only illuminates this evolution but also interrogates the association between masculinity and citizenship and the ways in which performing manhood through military service influenced how these men struggled for racial uplift. Following the Buffalo soldier units and two regular army infantry units from the frontier and the Mexican border to Mexico, Cuba, and the Philippines, Donaldson investigates how these locations and the wars therein provide windows into how the soldiers’ struggles influenced black life and status within the United States. Continuing to probe the idea of what it meant to be a military race man—a man concerned with the uplift of the black race who followed the philosophy of progress—Donaldson contrasts the histories of officers Henry Flipper and Charles Young, two soldiers who saw their roles and responsibilities as black military officers very differently. Duty beyond the Battlefield demonstrates that from the 1870s to 1920s military race men laid the foundation for the “New Negro” movement and the rise of Black Nationalism that influenced the future leaders of the twentieth century Civil Rights movement.


African American Officers in Liberia

African American Officers in Liberia

Author: Brian Shellum

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2018-08-01

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 1612349552

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"The story of seventeen African American officers who trained, reorganized, and commanded the Liberian Frontier Force to defend Liberia between 1910 and 1942"--


Buffalo Soldiers in Alaska

Buffalo Soldiers in Alaska

Author: Brian G. Shellum

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2021-11

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 1496228863

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The town of Skagway was born in 1897 after its population quintupled in under a year due to the Klondike gold rush. Balanced on the edge of anarchy, the U.S. Army stationed Company L, a unit of Buffalo Soldiers, there near the end of the gold rush. Buffalo Soldiers in Alaska tells the story of these African American soldiers who kept the peace during a volatile period in America's resource-rich North. It is a fascinating tale that features white officers and Black soldiers safeguarding U.S. territory, supporting the civil authorities, protecting Native Americans, fighting natural disasters, and serving proudly in America's last frontier. Despite the discipline and contributions of soldiers who served honorably, Skagway exhibited the era's persistent racism and maintained a clear color line. However, these Black Regulars carried out their complex and sometimes contradictory mission with a combination of professionalism and restraint that earned the grudging respect of the independently minded citizens of Alaska. The company used the popular sport of baseball to connect with the white citizens of Skagway and in the process gained some measure of acceptance. Though the soldiers left little trace in Skagway, a few remained after their enlistments and achieved success and recognition after settling in other parts of Alaska.


The Story of Black Military Officers, 1861-1948

The Story of Black Military Officers, 1861-1948

Author: Krewasky A. Salter I

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-01-10

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1134749449

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Black members of the military served in every war, conflict and military engagement between 1861 and 1948. Beyond serving only as enlisted soldiers and non-commissioned officers, many also served as commissioned officers in positions of leadership and authority. This book offers the first complete and conclusive work to specifically examine the history of black commissioned officers.


Assembly

Assembly

Author: West Point Association of Graduates (Organization).

Publisher:

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 958

ISBN-13:

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George W. Goethals and the Army

George W. Goethals and the Army

Author: Rory McGovern

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2019-03-22

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 0700627707

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Best known for leading the construction of the Panama Canal, George W. Goethals (1858–1928) also played a key role in the decades-long reform that transformed the American military from a frontier constabulary to the expeditionary force of an ascendant world power. George W. Goethals and the Army is at once the first full account of Goethals’s life and military career in ninety years and an in-depth analysis of the process that defined his generation’s military service—the evolution of the US Army during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. George W. Goethals was a lieutenant and a captain during the post-Reconstruction years of debate about reform and the future of the army. He was a major when the most significant reforms were created, and he helped with their implementation. As a major general during World War I, he directed a significant part of the army’s adaptation, resolving crises in the mobilization effort caused largely by years of internal resistance to reform. Following Goethals’s career and analyzing reform from his unique perspective, military historian Rory McGovern effectively shifts the focus away from the intent and toward the reality of reform—revealing the importance of the interaction between society, institutional structures, and institutional culture in the process. In this analysis, Goethals’s experiences, military thought, managerial philosophy, conceptions of professionalism, and attitude about training and development provide a framework for understanding the army’s institutional culture and his generation’s relative ambivalence about reform. In its portrait of an officer whose career bridged the distance between military generations, George W. Goethals and the Army also offers a compelling and complex interpretation of American military reform during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era—and valuable insight into the larger dynamics of institutional change that are as relevant today as they were a century ago.