Henry Ossian Flipper (March 21, 1856-May 3, 1940) was an American soldier and the first black American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy (West Point) Flipper was born into slavery in Thomasville, Georgia on March 21, 1856, the eldest of five brothers. His mother was a slave of the Reverend Reuben H. Lucky, a Methodist minister, and his father, Festus Flipper, a shoemaker and carriage-trimmer, was slave of Ephraim G. Ponder, a wealthy slave dealer. Wikipedia
The definitive Wikipedia entry for Henry Ossian Flipper. Wikipedia is the biggest multilingual free-content encyclopedia on the Internet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ossian_Flipper
