The Military Academy Equal Opportunity Office hosted the annual Black History Month Observance on Feb. 16 at the West Point Club. With the year’s theme, “African Americans and the Arts,” among the performances at the event were the Cadet Gospel Choir singing “The Best is Yet to Come,” and Capt. Aniya Knotts, who sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” and the Cadet Jazz Club performing musical numbers with their instruments. The guest speaker was Archie Elam, a 1976 USMA graduate, who while assigned to the 18th Airborne Corps when deployed to the Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, he
The Military Academy Equal Opportunity Office hosted the annual Black History Month Observance on Feb. 16 at the West Point Club. With the year’s theme, “African Americans and the Arts,” among the performances at the event were the Cadet Gospel Choir singing “The Best is Yet to Come,” and Capt. Aniya Knotts, who sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” and the Cadet Jazz Club performing musical numbers with their instruments. The guest speaker was Archie Elam, a 1976 USMA graduate, who while assigned to the 18th Airborne Corps when deployed to the Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, he led 36,000 troops to the deepest attack behind enemy lines in Army history, more than 250 miles, to cut off the Iraqi Army escaping Kuwait and helped destroy the Republican Guard. Elam spoke about his father growing up and then joining the Army and serving during World War II, Korea and Vietnam. He talked about his experience at the academy and in the Army, and how that all intertwined with his experiences as a Black man in America. (
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