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Subject: [SI] RE: James SMITH - West Point Cadet
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 18:26:58 EST

The Shawnee News-Star
Tuesday, September 23, 1997

123 years later, West Point's first black cadet gets commission

ORANGEBURG, S.C. (AP) -- The Army finally commissioned West Point's first
black cadet Monday, 123 years after the former slave was expelled for failing
an exam despite enduring years of racial harassment from fellow cadets.

"It's never too late to right a wrong," Army Secretary Togo West said.

James Webster Smith's commissioning certificate and gold second lieutenant's
bars was presented to South Carolina State University, where they will go on
display because Smith has no known descendants.

Smith, born a slave in Columbia, entered the U.S. Military Academy in 1870,
five years after the end of the Civil War. From the start, he was harassed by
white cadets, according to an Army review of the case.

Other cadets refused to talk to him or have anything to do with him except on
official business. He was denied the right to eat with other cadets and had
slop poured on him at night.

He was court-martialed twice, had to repeat a year and was finally expelled
for failing an examination at the end of his junior year. Despite the
hardships, Smith stuck out four years at the academy.

West said cadets should be able to expect support from other cadets and the
academy.

"That was not here for Cadet Smith," he said. "The record has waited to be
corrected. A wrong has waited to be righted. A nation's ideals have waited to
be vindicated."

Smith later served as commandant of cadets at South Carolina Agricultural and
Mechanical Institute, which became South Carolina State. He died at age 26 of
tuberculosis.

Members of the state's congressional delegation, Reps. John Spratt and Jim
Clyburn, pushed to get commissions for Smith and another black cadet from
South Carolina, Johnson Whittaker, also a former slave who was awarded a
posthumous commission by President Clinton two years ago.

Ruth in NC

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