Bishop Joseph Simeon Flipper

Excerpt from the bio of Bishop Joseph Simeon Flipper, brother of Lieutenant Henry Ossian Flipper, 10th United States Cavalry Regiment, the first Black to graduate from the U. S. Military Academy at West Point.

"In 1908 he was elected Bishop and assigned to the Ninth District (Oklahoma and Arkansas). The "class of 1908," Bishops Parks, Flipper, Johnson and Heard, established a scholarship of $200 per year in "any first class Methodist Theological Seminary" to any college graduate licensed to preach in the A.M.E. Church. Bishop Flipper was secretary of the scholarship fund. Some of our ablest young men took advantage of the fund, among them Dr. G. A Singleton, editor of the Christian Recorder and A.M.E. Church Review and Rev. E. E. Tyler of Philadelphia.

While serving in Oklahoma and Arkansas, 1908-1912, he visited places no other Bishops had ever visited and the membership was greatly increased; . . . ."

NOTE: First assignment after elected Bishop - the year after Oklahoma (Indian/Oklahoma Territory) gained statehood - http://www.bjmjr.com/usa/three2.htm -- Arkansas admitted in 1836 and seceded from the Union May 6, 1861 - http://www.bjmjr.com/usa/seven.htm

SOURCE: Bishop R. R. Wright, Jr., Ph.D., LL.D. Historiographer of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. THE BISHOP OF THE AFRICAN METHODIST CHURCH. Printed by the A.M.E. Sunday School Union, 1963.