Commander Wesley Brown became the first black Naval Academy graduate on June 3, 1949. Brown, who served in WWII, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, was admitted to the Naval Academy with five other black candidates in 1945. The Howard University Graduate attended Annapolis alongside President Jimmy Carter, who was his friend and colleague on the cross-country track team.
Commander Brown’s training at the academy was full of discrimination. He was given many undeserved demerits. He was taunted with racial slurs and hazed by white cadets. They wanted to do everything in their power to have him thrown out of the academy. He would sit alone in the cafeteria. At one point, Rep. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. wrote a letter on Brown’s behalf to express the efforts being taken to expel the cadet from Annapolis. The situation was said to be under investigation by Navy Secretary James Forrestal, who told Powell that Brown was fine and there were no discrimination issues.
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