History in the Making Although the United States Military Academy at West Point has been training commissioned army leaders since the early 1800s, it has yet to see more than 20 African-American women graduate in a single class. Simone Askew When she marches among the graduating class of 2018, Cadet Simone Askew will do so as the very first Black woman to lead the Corps of Cadets in the school’s history, the highest student position at USMA. Her appointment comes 28 years after Cadet Vincent K. Brookswas named the first African-American to ever serve as First Captain. Askew, a native of a Washington, D.C. suburb in Northern Virginia, has said her interest in the armed forces started when she was a little girl, when her mother took her and her sister to football games at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. “I never saw my race or gender as a roadblock to me being selected or even for me being competitive as a First Capta...
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