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Wesley Anthony Brown broke the color line in the U.S. Naval Academy as its first African American graduate in 1949. He served in the U.S. Navy for twenty years, retiring in 1969 with the rank of Lieutenant Commander.
Said Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:
He fought a war his whole life for all of us to improve who we are as individuals, who we are both as a Navy and a nation. It was his noble calling and it was his call to service and citizenship that led to lasting change in our Navy and in our nation.[1]
He was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1927,[2] the only child and son of William Brown and his wife Rosetta Katherine Hicks,[3] and moved to Washington, D.C. with his family, or possibly just his mother. His parents may have separated for at least a time in 1940, as he was counted on the census that year with his mother, but not his father, in the household of his maternal foster grandmother in Washington D.C. He was thirteen years old,[4] so he and and his mother may have been there without his father simply to be closer to historic, academically superior Dunbar High School, in preparation for the next school year. After graduating from Dunbar,[5] he was accepted into Howard University, and became the first in his family to attend college.[2]
On June 3, 1949, Brown was the first African American to graduate from the Academy, ranking 370th out of nearly 800 graduates. President Jimmy Carter was a classmate. One year earlier, President Harry S. Truman had issued the executive order desegregating the military.
He didn't think of himself as a hero:
Many newspapers covered his graduation as a landmark achievement in military history. Cmdr. Brown saw it differently. “I feel it is unfortunate the American people have not matured enough to accept an individual on the basis of his ability and not regard a person as an oddity because of his color,” Cmdr. Brown told the New York Times in 1949. “My class standing shows that around here I am an average ‘Joe.’[6]
But he'd endured years of hazing and being shunned by many of his fellows.[6] In a 2005 interview with the Baltimore Sun, he said that he learned to not be frustrated when faced with a situation that couldn't be changed.
When I came to the Academy, I learned that there were all kinds of prejudices - against Jews, Catholics, even the Irish - and I looked around and thought that these prejudices were instilled in them by their families and they could not be blamed for feeling the way they did," he said.[1]
And,
In a 2005 interview with the [Annapolis] Capital, Brown said he spent his four years at the academy without a roommate by choice. He said he didn't want the academy to order an unwilling white midshipman to room with him. He also didn't want to subject friendlier whites to abuse.[7]
Said Navy historian Robert J. Schneller Jr., who wrote about Commander Brown's years at the Naval Academy in his book Breaking the Color Barrier: The U.S. Naval Academy's First Black Midshipmen and the Struggle for Racial Equality,
It's important for America to remember Wesley A. Brown. He was a pioneer like Jesse Owens and Jackie Robinson.[8]
As a member of the Navy's Civil Engineer Corps, he served in Korea and Vietnam; he helped build houses in Hawaii, roads in Liberia, wharves in the Philippines, a nuclear power plant in Antarctica, and a seawater desalination plant in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.[2][9] Lt. Cmdr. Brown had a prestigious military career that included earning a Navy Commendation Medal on August 7, 1964, [citation needed] and the 2009 National Society of Black Engineers Golden Torch Legacy Award-First Honoree.[2]
After retiring from the Navy in 1969, Brown worked for the New York State University Construction Fund, the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York, and Howard University.[2]
He had four children from his first marriage in 1950 in Washington D.C., to Jean Beverly Alston, which ended in divorce:[10][6]
His second marriage was in 1964 to Crystal Malone, and lasted until his death in 2012.[6]
Lt Cdr Brown died on May 22, 2012,[11] in Silver Spring, Maryland. He is buried in the US Naval Academy Cemetery, Annapolis, Maryland.[12][13]
The Wesley Brown Field House at the U.S. Naval Academy is named in his honor.[14]
William Brown was Wesley's father figure and the man considered to be the patriarch of the family. Based on current sources on the profiles of William Brown and Rosetta (Hicks Shephard) Brown, William may (or may not) be Wesley's biological father. McGee-1611 11:58, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
See also:
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Wesley is 33 degrees from Herbert Adair, 30 degrees from Richard Adams, 29 degrees from Mel Blanc, 31 degrees from Dick Bruna, 30 degrees from Bunny DeBarge, 40 degrees from Peter Dinklage, 29 degrees from Sam Edwards, 27 degrees from Ginnifer Goodwin, 29 degrees from Marty Krofft, 24 degrees from Junius Matthews, 23 degrees from Rachel Mellon and 27 degrees from Harold Warstler on our single family tree. Login to find your connection.
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Categories: Civil Engineers | Howard University | United States Naval Academy Cemetery, Annapolis, Maryland | United States Naval Academy | US Black Heritage Project Managed Profiles | African-American Notables | Notables
Please be advised that this profile has been selected by the USBH project for "Platinum Profile" status and editing. I'll be making minor changes in the coming days to try to highlight important details and polish the formatting and writing, if I can. Let me know if you disagree with any changes I make-- I'm sure we can come to agreement. Thanks for the work you've contributed in this collaborative effort!