Retired Lt. Cmdr. Wesley Brown, the first African-American to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy, has died, the Academy said. He was 85. The Capital of Annapolis reported that Brown died Tuesday. An Academy spokesman did not know where Brown died and a cause of death was not immediately known Wednesday. Brown, a 1949 graduate, was appointed to the Academy in 1945. He was the sixth black admitted but the first to earn a degree. Brown "embodied the highest ideals of the Academy's mission and dedicated himself to decades of selfless and distinguished service to our nation," Vice Admiral Michael H. Miller, the Naval Academy's superintendent, said in a statement. At the Naval Academy, Brown ran varsity track and cross country, and was a cross-country teammate of former President Jimmy Carter. A 1995 interview on Brown by The Baltimore Sun noted a framed 1989 letter from his fellow track team member, who would stop by to talk to him and encouraged him to "hang in there." "I ran with you (you were better). Jimmy Carter," the letter read. Brown spent his four years at the academy without a roommate by choice, he recalled in a 2005 interview with The Capital. He said he didn't want to feel responsible for unwilling or friendly white midshipmen. He was featured in the book, "Breaking the Color Barrier: The U.S. Naval Academy's First Black Midshipmen and the Struggle for Racial Equality" by Navy historian Robert J. Schneller Jr. The author said in a 2005 interview that upperclassmen would give Brown excessive demerits for allegedly not maintaining his uniform properly and some classmates would not sit next to him in the cafeteria. He told The Baltimore Sun in a 2005 interview that he learned to not be frustrated when faced with a situation that couldn't be changed. Continued... |