Photo controversy highlights black women in Long Gray Line
[...] it was far from ordinary when 16 black women put their own spin on the traditional graduation photo, hoisting their fists in the air while posing in their dress uniforms, swords at their sides.
The cadets pictured are joining a rare but proud group of black women who have broken barriers on dual fronts at West Point.
In interviews with The Associated Press, black alumnae describe a rewarding experience with challenges that included navigating racial incidents.
Blacks have contributed to West Point's legacy for centuries, from the first African-American cadet, Henry O. Flipper, who graduated in 1877, to 2nd Lt. Emily Perez, a black woman who was the first member of the "Class of 9/11" to die in combat, in 2006.
According to admissions director Col. Deborah McDonald, about 15,000 students apply to West Point each year, and about 9 percent enroll.
There were 1,859 black applicants for the incoming freshman class, and 14 percent of them were accepted, McDonald said.
The Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, counts 20 women who identify as African-American in its 2016 graduating class of 1,215.
The Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, has a graduating class of 827, of whom 11 are African-American women.
The Coast Guard Academy, in New London, Connecticut, didn't have a gender breakdown by race, but said three students identifying as African-American are in the graduating class of 186.
[...] they said, fellow cadets, and sometimes staff or faculty, took notice when more than a handful of blacks came together for meals on Sundays, when cadets were not required to eat with their companies.
People would come over and ask, 'What are you guys doing?' I have never seen 10 African-Americans sitting together at West Point.
Dowdy, now stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, said when Barack Obama was elected the country's first black president — and the cadets' new commander in chief — in 2008, some on campus "were mad, they were disrespectful, saying the n-word."