[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 8 (Monday, March 1, 1999)]
[Pages 261-262]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on the Posthumous Pardon of Lieutenant Henry O. Flipper

February 19, 1999

    Thank you. First of all, I'd like to welcome this distinguished 
assemblage here: Dr. King and the members of the Flipper family and your 
friends, Secretary West, Congressman Clyburn, General Powell, Deputy 
Secretary Hamre, Under Secretary de Leon, General Ralston, General 
Reimer, Secretary Caldera. I understand we're joined by Clarence 
Davenport, the sixth African-American graduate of West Point, other 
distinguished West Point graduates who are here. Welcome to all of you.
    There's one person who could not be here today--Deputy Attorney 
General Eric Holder, I'm glad to see you--the one person who could not 
be here today I want to acknowledge, and that is Senator Max Cleland 
from Georgia, who has done a lot to make this day possible. We thank him 
in his absence.
    I welcome you all to an event that is 117 years overdue. Here in 
America's house of liberty, we celebrate ideas like freedom, equality, 
our indivisibility as one people. Great leaders lived here, people like 
Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Lincoln, the Roosevelts, after whom this room is 
named. All of them deepened the meaning of those words while they lived 
here. But we must be candid and say that the special quality of American 
freedom is not always extended to all Americans.
    A word like ``freedom,'' to be more than a slogan, requires us to 
acknowledge that our ``more perfect Union'' was created by imperfect 
human beings, people who did not always define freedom in the ways that 
we would, and in ways that they knew they should. For this word to live 
for ourselves and our children, we must recognize it represents a 
difficult goal that must be struggled with every day in order to be 
realized.
    Today's ceremony is about a moment in 1882, when our Government did 
not do all it could do to protect an individual American's freedom. It 
is about a moment in 1999 when we correct the error and resolve to do 
even better in the future.
    The man we honor today was an extraordinary American. Henry Flipper 
did all his country asked him to do. Though born a slave in Georgia, he 
was proud to serve America: the first African-American graduate of West 
Point; the first African-American commissioned officer in the regular 
United States Army. He showed brilliant promise and joined the 10th 
Cavalry. While stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, he perfected a drainage 
system that eliminated the stagnant water, and malaria, plaguing the 
fort. Still known as ``Flipper's Ditch,'' it became a national landmark 
in 1977.
    He distinguished himself in combat on the frontier and then was 
transferred to run a commissary at Fort Davis in Texas. In 1881 
Lieutenant Flipper was accused by his commanding officer of improperly 
accounting for the funds entrusted to him. A later Army review suggested 
he had been singled out for his race, but at the time there wasn't much 
justice available for a young African-American soldier. In December a 
court-martial acquitted him of embezzlement, but convicted him of 
conduct unbecoming an officer. President Chester A. Arthur declined to 
overturn the sentence, and in June of 1882 Lieutenant Flipper was 
dishonorably discharged.
    His life continued. He became a civil and mining engineer out West. 
He worked in many capacities for the Government, as special agent for 
the Department of Justice, as an expert on Mexico for the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee, as a special assistant to the Secretary of the 
Interior. He died in 1940 at the age of 84.
    But even after his death, this stain of dishonor remained. One 
hundred and seventeen years have now elapsed since his discharge. That's 
a long time, even more than the span of his long life, more than half 
the

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history of the White House, indeed, of the Untied States itself--and too 
long to let an injustice lie uncorrected.
    The Army exonerated him in 1976, changed his discharge to honorable, 
and reburied him with full honors. But one thing remained to be done, 
and now it will be. With great pleasure and humility, I now offer a full 
pardon to Lieutenant Henry Ossian Flipper of the United States Army. 
This good man now has completely recovered his good name.
    It has been a trying thing for the family to fight this long battle, 
to confront delays and bureaucratic indifference, but this is a day of 
affirmation. It teaches us that, although the wheels of justice turn 
slowly at times, still they turn. It teaches that time can heal old 
wounds and redemption comes to those who persist in a righteous cause. 
Most of all, it teaches us--Lieutenant Flipper's family teaches us--that 
we must never give up the fight to make our country live up to its 
highest ideals.
    Outside of this room, Henry Flipper is not known to most Americans. 
All the more reason to remember him today. His remarkable life story is 
important to us, terribly important, as we continue to work--on the edge 
of a new century and a new millennium--on deepening the meaning of 
freedom at home, and working to expand democracy and freedom around the 
world, to give new life to the great experiment begun in 1776. This is 
work Henry Flipper would have been proud of.
    Each of you who worked so hard for this day is a living chapter in 
the story of Lieutenant Flipper. I thank you for your devotion, your 
courage, your persistence, your unshakable commitment. I thank you for 
believing and proving that challenges never disappear, but in the long 
run, freedom comes to those who persevere.
    Thank you very, very much.

Note: The President spoke at 6:33 p.m. in the Roosevelt Room at the 
White House. In his remarks, he referred to William C. King, Lieutenant 
Flipper's great-grandnephew; and former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman 
Gen. Colin Powell, USA (Ret.). This item was not received in time for 
publication in the appropriate issue.