Johnson Chesnut Whittaker (August 23, 1858 – January 14, 1931)[1] was one of the first black men to win an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point.

[3] Initially, Whittaker was held by a court of inquiry, where he was defended by Martin I. Townsend and his old friend, Richard Greener, and finally granted a court-martial.

[7] After more than a year of nationally publicized hearings, Whittaker was found guilty in an 1881 court martial of staging the attack, and expelled from West Point.

[7] Though the verdict was overturned in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur, West Point reinstated the expulsion on the same day on the grounds that Whittaker had failed an exam.

[5] A great-grandson, Ulysses W. Boykin III, served as a first lieutenant in the Vietnam-era Army and a judge of the circuit court in Wayne County, Michigan.

[3] In 1994, a television movie based on the book aired, which generated momentum for the movement to award Whittaker a posthumous commission as an officer in the US Army.