The president Joe Biden announced Brigadier General Charles “CQ” Brown, Jr. as the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest military officer in the United States.

Brown, currently the Air Force Chief of Staff, will replace Gen. Mark Miley, whose term expires in September. If confirmed, he would become the second African-American officer to hold the highest post in US history, after Gen. Colin Powell, who served from 1989 to 1993.

Since Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is also African American, this will be the first time in history that two African Americans will simultaneously hold the highest political and military positions in the Pentagon.

Biden also thanked General Miley for his many years of service at the head of the armed forces in “the most difficult security environment our world has faced in a long time.”

As Chief of the Air Force Staff, General Brown oversees the training and equipping of nearly 700,000 military personnel both in the US and abroad. Prior to his current position, he was Commander, Pacific Air Forces, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

He began his military service as an aviator, with over 3,000 flight hours and 130 combat hours.

Following the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota in 2020, Brown posted an emotional video in which he talks about his personal experience as a black man in America.

“I think about the pressure I felt to act flawlessly,” he said of his early military career, “especially for superiors, who I felt expected less of me as an African American.”

According to the BBC