ANNAPOLIS, Md. (WUSA) -- When he arrived at the track meet named for him, everything stopped. The crowd fell silent. Rightfully so, because a Naval Academy legend had just entered the building.
"He's done so much," said Arvind Stone, who is currently a Plebe or first year Midshipman at the Academy.
His Fellow Plebe, Jeramy Triplett agreed, "It's absolutely amazing."
They're both talking about Wesley Brown, the Naval Academy's first black graduate (1949). Midshipmen of color walk "The Yard" today, in part because he was willing to go it alone some sixty years ago.
"I was the only African American Midshipman here for three years," says Brown, recalling those difficult early days as he watched the track meet ongoing below. He was a track man himself in his Academy days. Prior to that he grew up in the District of Columbia and attended Dunbar Senior High School. He quickly found out that although the geographic distance between Annapolis and D.C. wasn't far, the two were world's apart. "I reported into Bancroft Hall and I think there were some whispers, he recalls laughing." "Once the Brigade of Midshipmen returned, that's when the hazing and the demerits and all the unpleasant things began."
Brown, however, was tougher and bigger than those indignities..He graduated and went on to serve in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Now 84 years old, his health is failing due to liver cancer among other things. How much time he has left is unclear so Saturday's (Jan 30th) track meet was his moment, in his building (Wesley Brown Field House), at his track meet, the 4th Annual Wesley Brown Invitational. The Academy rolled out the red carpet so Midshipmen of all colors could pay homage to Brown and he could pass on knowledge to them.
"There have been a lot of changes over the years," says Brown "and its all good." "I can't imagine the hardships he had to go through to be treated equally," says Midshipman First Class Donald Bowers. Realistically, that's probably something that only Brown knows.