MY DEAR MR. FLIPPER: It has been four years since Ilast addressed you. Then you had just entered the Academy with other young colored men, who have since dropped by the way. I was at that time the editor of the Era in this city, and wrote an article on West Point and snobocracy which you may remember reading.
I felt a thrill of pleasure here the other day when Iread your name as the first graduate from the Academy.
I take this opportunity of writing you again to extend my hearty congratulations, and trust your future career may be as successful as your academic one. "My boy,"Whittaker, has, I am told, been rooming with you, and Itrust has been getting much benefit from the association.
I am, your friend and well-wisher,RICHARD T. GREENER.
42 BROAD STREET, NEW YORK, June 4, 1877.
CADET HENRY O. FLIPPER, West Point, N. Y.:
DEAR SIR: I have been much pleased reading the complimentary references to your approaching graduation which have appeared in the New York papers the past week. I beg to congratulate you most heartily, and I sincerely trust that the same intelligence and pluck which has enabled you to successfully complete your academic course may be shown in a still higher degree in the new sphere of duty soon to be entered upon.
I inclose an editorial from to-day's Tribune.
Respectfully, --.
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE, WASHINGTON, D.C., June 5, 1877.
HENRY O. FLIPPER, Esq., U. S. Military Academy, West Point, N. Y.
DEAR SIR: Having noticed in the daily papers of this city an account of the successful termination of your course at the Military Academy, we hasten to tender you our sincere congratulations.
We are prompted to this act by an experimental knowledge of the social ostracism and treacherous duplicity to which you must have been made the unhappy victim during the long years of faithful study through which you have just passed.
We congratulate you upon the moral courage and untiring energy which must have been yours, to enable you to successfully battle against the immeasurable influence of the prejudice shown to all of us at both of our national schools. We hail your success as a national acknowledgment, in a new way, of the mental and moral worth of our race; and we feel amply repaid for the many privations we have undergone in the naval branch of our service, in noting the fact that one of us has been permitted to successfully stand the trying ordeal.
Trusting that the same firmness of purpose and untiring energy, which have characterized your stay there, may ever be true of your future career on the field and at the hearth side,We remain, very truly yours, --, --.
POST-OFFICE, NEW YORK CITY, N. Y.
OFFICE OF THE POSTMASTER, Wednesday, June 7, 1877.
MY DEAR FRIEND: Let me extend to you my full gratitude upon your success at West Point. I was overjoyed when I saw it. My friends are delighted with you, and they desire to see you when you come down. Let me know when you think you will leave West Point, and I will look out for you.
Very truly yours, -- .
HENRY O. FLIPPER, ESQ., West Point Military Academy.
WASHINGTON, D. C., June 13, 1877.
HENRY O. FLIPPER, ESQ., West Point, N. Y.:
MY DEAR FRIEND: I wish to congratulate you upon passing successfully your final examination, and salute you as the first young colored man who has had the manhood and courage to struggle through and overcome every obstacle. So many of our young men had failed that I wondered if you would be able to withstand all the opposition you met with, whether you could endure the kind of life they mete out to our young men at our national Military Academy. Irejoice to know that you have won this important victory over prejudice and caste. This will serve you in good stead through many a conflict in life.
Your path will not be all strewn with roses; something of that caste and prejudice will still pursue you as you enter the broader arena of military life, but you must make up your mind to live it down, and your first victory will greatly aid you in this direction. One thing, allow me to impress upon you: you are not fighting your own battle, but you are fighting the battle of a struggling people; and for this reason, my dear Flipper, resolve now in your deepest soul that come what may you will never surrender; that you will never succumb. Others may leave the service for more lucrative pursuits; your duty to your people and to yourself demand that you remain.
Be assured that whatever you do, wherever you may go, you always have my deepest sympathy and best wishes.
I return to Europe in a few weeks.
Cordially yours, --.
Even the cadets and other persons connected with the Academy congratulated me. Oh how happy I was!
I prized these good words of the cadets above all others. They knew me thoroughly. They meant what they said, and I felt I was in some sense deserving of all I received from them by way of congratulation.
Several visited my quarters. They did not hesitate to speak to me or shake hands with me before each other or any one else. All signs of ostracism were gone. All felt as if I was worthy of some regard, and did not fail to extend it to me.
At length, on June 14th, I received the reward of my labors, my "sheepskin," the United States Military Academy Diploma, that glorious passport to honor and distinction, if the bearer do never disgrace it.
Here is the manner of ceremony we had on that day, as reported in the New York Times:
