“In the words of my father, it is not a sin to get knocked down. It is a sin to stay down,” said Phillip Brashear, son of the late Master Chief Carl Brashear, the Navy’s first Black deep sea diver.

Knowing when, and where, Carl Brashear grew up might make you pause when you learn he became the first Black master diver in the U.S. Navy. But Brashear never let adversity stand in his way. Born in ...