DOHA, Qatar (NNPA)—The success of Brig. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, deputy director of operations at the United States Central Command here, and that of his older brother, Brig. Gen. Leo A. Brooks Jr., commandant of the U.S. Corps of Cadets at West Point, has placed renewed attention on the United States Military Academy and its treatment of Blacks.

The Brooks brothers, whose father is a retired Army general, graduated from West Point. And the military academy points to them with understandable pride. Leo, who graduated in 1979, a year ahead of his brother, became the 68th commandant last June. In addition to being a key strategist for the war in Iraq, Vince has been the official face and voice of the war through his televised daily briefings.

Blacks who attended West Point during its early years were not as welcomed as they are today. Instead, African-Americans were often subjected to racism and personal humiliation.

Henry O. Flipper, the son of Georgia slaves, became the first African-American to graduate from West Point in 1877. In a speech earlier this year, Leo Brooks Jr. observed: “Lieutenant Flipper often stated that he was treated very courteously by his instructors, but his fellow cadets treated him quite badly, shunning him throughout his four years at West Point and seemed to go out of their way to torment and humiliate him.”

Shunning—or not speaking to another cadet—is punishment usually reserved for those who violate West Point honor code. However, Flipper’s so-called offense was that he was Black.

Even so, Brooks noted, “Flipper maintained his dignity and remained very polite to all who came in contact with him, and he paved the way for future minority cadets to succeed at West Point.”

But Flipper’s suffering did not end there.

“If anything, his mistreatment intensified during his service in the Army,” Brooks stated. In 1881, Flipper’s commanding officer accused him of embezzlement and conduct unbecoming to an officer. Flipper was later acquitted of the embezzlement charge but guilty of conduct unbecoming of an officer and dismissed from service.

In 1976, the Army Board of Corrections found that his punishment had been “unduly harsh and unjust” and awarded him an honorable discharge. In 1999, President Clinton issued a Flipper a posthumous pardon.

When Benjamin O. Davis Jr. entered West Point more than a half-century later, nothing had changed. He, too, was shunned. No White cadet would room with him, he ate by himself in the dining hall and no one spoke to him unless they were issuing an order. Still, Davis, the son of the first African-American general of the Army, finished in the top 15 percent of his class and remained unbroken.

He would later say, “I was silenced solely because cadets did not want Blacks at West Point. Their only purpose was to freeze me out. What they did not realize was that I was stubborn enough to put up with their treatment to reach the goal I had come to attain.”

Davis was assigned to segregated Ft. Benning, Ga., where he could not enter the Officer’s Club or live in integrated housing. His former classmates at West Point still refused to speak to him.

When President Franklin Roosevelt decided to create an African-American flying corps, Davis was selected to direct it. The 99th Fighter Squadron, better known as the Tuskegee Airmen, distinguished itself during World War II, flying 200 missions and never losing a bomber. That settled the question of whether Blacks could fly planes.

By the time Leo and Vincent Brooks enrolled at West Point, enough African-Americans had passed through the academy that Blacks were no longer being shunned. But when Vince Brooks became First Captain in 1979, the highest honor a cadet can earn, many old guard graduates were not happy about the prospect of a Black man finally holding that coveted position.

“My obligations there were different: To make it clear that the corps of cadets was in good hands, that I had been chosen for a good reason, West Point would not risk tokenism, and it was because there was trust and confidence,” Vince Brooks said in an interview with the NNPA News Service. “I wanted to convey that and decided to overcome it.”

And he did just that.

And so did his brother, Leo, who was key to Vince’s decision to follow him there. Leo’s Black predecessor was Fred A. Gordon, who became commandant in 1962. This year, Rick Turner is following in Vince Brooks’ footsteps as the second Black First Captain at West Point.

The West Point motto is: Duty, honor, country. It is only in recent years that it has acted with honor toward African-Americans.