BHM 2018 - Day 5: Black Ambassadors

[qwlauren35]

Hi all,
This is a compilation of about 10 different articles about our presence in foreign service. It turns out that many of the people in foreign service are not politicians, so I am deviating from my plans. But I hope you will find this interesting. I will point out that many of these articles were written when Obama was in office, so they are not up-to-date. I have no idea whether Trump has appointed any black ambassadors. I don't want to think about it. Also, the tables didn't survive. I have tried to make them readable.

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Since 1776 when the United States sent its first envoy to France, men and later women diplomats have been assigned to be the nation's official representatives in global capitals and to international organizations where they are responsible for major foreign policy portfolios. Prior to 1893 those individuals were called (Diplomatic) Ministers and Envoys. Two of the first black diplomats served in the 1800’s. William Alexander Leidesdorff, was appointed vice consul in Yerba Buena, Mexico, (today’s San Francisco) on October 29, 1845 by the Tomas O. Larkin, the U.S. consul in Monterey, Mexico. Yale graduate Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett, was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant as Minister Resident and Consul General in Haiti in 1869.


Since 1893, the title of ambassadors was conferred on those heading U.S. diplomatic delegations to their respective nations and organizations. The Ambassador is the president’s full-time personal representative on the ground. As such, each Ambassador must be appointed by the U.S. president (and then be confirmed by the U.S. Senate). Presidential appointment is one of the reasons why in many places a political appointee is much preferred. Said six-time career ambassador Terrance Todman, “if this guy isn’t career, yet the president picked and sent him here, he must be a buddy. And if anything happens he can, ”Hey, Prez,” and it’s done. That’s what a country is looking for. They’re looking for a channel of direct communication and a person of influence.”


Since 1893 there have been more than two thousand two hundred Americans who have held this title and rank. Only 149 of those have been black Americans. The first American ambassador of African descent was Edward Dudley who at age thirty-eight was first appointed by President Harry Truman as minister to Liberia. Upon elevation of that mission to full embassy status, Dudley was elevated to the rank of U.S. ambassador to Liberia in 1949. Every U.S. president since then has appointed at least one black American as a U.S. ambassador.


African-American ambassadors have come from all walks of life. Their higher education backgrounds range from small community colleges to large public research institutions, Ivy League universities to historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), U.S.-based universities to universities abroad, as well as women’s universities and the military academies. This educational diversity is also matched by their professional diversity since these ambassadors have been drawn from the academy, from corporate America, from public office, from entertainment, and even from the pulpit.


As ambassadors, black Americans have been appointed to lead U.S. diplomatic delegations in at least ninety-five nations. They have also represented U.S. interests before the United Nations and other international or regional organizations, and have led the strategic initiatives to combat terrorism, prosecute war crimes, promote trade, and promote religious freedom. At least forty have been appointed on two or more different occasions to multiple postings, bringing the total amount of times a black American has successfully been appointed to a total of 209.


Politically, Democratic presidents have appointed eighty black Americans to their first ambassadorial appointments, while Republicans have appointed sixty-nine. At least eighteen of the 149 black American ambassadors were appointed by both a Democrat and a Republican president to one of their multiple postings, demonstrating that ambassadorial appointments of individuals do not always happen only along partisan lines. As the table below illustrates, President G. W. Bush tops this list as he accredited a black American on forty-four occasions during his presidency. President Obama, nearing the end of his term, has so far appointed a black American on forty-two occasions to an ambassadorial posting. Of the fifty-two black women who have served as U.S. ambassador, President G. W. Bush appointed the largest number of them, doing so on twenty-three occasions during his presidency.

Table 1: Appointment of Black Americans to the Ambassadorship by U.S. Presidents

Truman 1945 – 53 Democrat 1
Eisenhower 1053 – 61 Republican 3
Kennedy 1961 – 63 Democrat 3
Johnson 1963 – 69 Democrat 9
Nixon 1969 – 74 Republican 12
Ford 1974 – 77 Republican 5
Carter 1977 – 81 Democrat 16
Reagan 1981 – 89 Republican 18
G. H. Bush 1989 – 93 Republican 16
Clinton 1993 – 2001 Democrat 40
G. W. Bush 2001 – 09 Republican 44
Obama 2009 – present Democrat 42
TOTAL 209

The countries of Africa south of the Sahara have by far had the most black Americans as U.S. ambassadors as one has been accredited to a country in this region on 127 occasions. Black Americans have served as ambassadors to all but two – Angola and Mauritania – of the nations of sub-Saharan Africa. No other region comes close in representation. Black ambassadors have served on fifteen occasions in East Asia and the Pacific, fifteen occasions at various posts in the United Nations or other international organizations, fourteen occasions in Europe and Eurasian countries, twelve in Caribbean countries, nine in countries of Central and South America, seven in countries in the Near East/North Africa, and six at-large or other ambassadorial appointments. With only three black Americans serving as ambassadors, South and Central Asia is the world region that has seen the least number of black Americans as ambassadors.


Below is a snapshot of some of the historical firsts, among black ambassadors, some ambassadors with well-known names as well as ambassadors who were noteworthy because of activities they participated in.

Frederick Douglass, Haiti,1889 Famous abolitionist

Clifton Reginald Wharton Sr. Norway,1961 joined the Foreign Service in 1925, first African-American Foreign Service Officer to become chief of a diplomatic mission when he was appointed Minister to Romania on February 5, 1958.

Carl T. Rowan, Finland, 1963 In 1961, appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State by President John F. Kennedy. 1962, delegate to the United Nations during the Cuban Missile Crisis. U.S. Ambassador to Finland in 1963. In 1964, appointed director of the United States Information Agency (USIA) by President Lyndon B. Johnson. In serving as director of the USIA, Rowan became the first African American to hold a seat on the National Security Council and the highest level African American in the United States government.

Patricia Roberts Harris, Luxembourg,1965 first African American Woman in U.S. history to hold the rank of Ambassador -,

Terence Todman,
Chad, 1969,
Guinea, 1972,
Costa Rica, 1974,
Spain, 1978,
Denmark, 1983,
Argentina, 1989 Career ambassador, most ambassadorships of any African-American.

Jerome Heartwell Holland Sweden,1970 2nd Ambassador to a European nation, president of Hampton Institute, first African American to serve on the board of directors for the New York Stock Exchange

Andrew Young U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, 1977 Mayor of Atlanta, a Congressman the 5th district,

George E. Moose
Benin, 1983
Senegal 1988,
European Office of the United Nations in Geneva in 1997; Career ambassador, first black Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs (1993)

Ulric Haynes Jr., Algeria, 1977 instrumental in the negotiations that ultimately led to the 1981 release of American hostages in Iran during the well-documented Iranian hostage crisis.

Edward J. Perkins –
Liberia, 1985,
South Africa, 1986,
United Nations 1992
Australia, 1993
Career ambassador, Director of the Office of West African Affairs (1983-1985). First black Director General of the Foreign Service,(1989)

Johnny Young –
Sierra Leone 1989
Togo 1994
Bahrain 1997
Slovenia 2001
Career ambassador, While in Slovenia from Young helped persuade Slovenian leaders to join The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU).

Aurelia Erskine Brazeal Micronesia 1990
,Kenya 1993
Ethiopia 2002
first African American female Foreign Service Officer (FSO) to rise from the entry level to the senior ranks of the Foreign Service as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs..

Ruth A. Davis
Republic of Benin, 1992
the first African American woman Career Ambassador

Carl B. Stokes Seychelles, 1994 Mayor of Cleveland in 1967,

Diane Edith Watson Micronesia, 1998 U.S. Congresswoman representing South Central Los Angeles since 2000

Carol Moseley-Braun, New Zealand and Samoa, 1999 US Senator from Illinois

Linda Thomas-Greenfield Liberia, 2008 Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Africa Affairs (2013)

Susan Rice. United States Ambassador to the United Nations, 2009-2013 Served on the staff of the National Security Council (1993) and as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs (1997)

The last article I found was an interview with Terence Todman. Todman is one of the few people to attain the rank of career ambassador – the equivalent of a four-star general – in the Department of State, having served as ambassador to six different countries. He is also one of the few African Americans to be so honored and was known for his outspokenness during a time of segregated dining facilities, when few minorities could be found at any level of the Department. Todman began his career in the State Department in 1952. This is snippets from the interview that I thought were interesting because they give some insight into the realities of being a black diplomat.

Getting into the State Department is something that I think is worth saying a word about, because although I had passed the exams and I was told that I was in, the day that I reported for work, the chief of personnel said he was very sorry but State couldn’t hire me. Then I asked what he was talking about. I had turned down everything to come to do this and I had been told that I was accepted. Now here I am reporting for work and you tell me this. “What do you mean?”

He said, “Well, we reviewed your record and we found that you’re not the kind of person we can use. We need in the U.S. Foreign Service people who are 100 percent identifiable as Americans. And we note from your record that in reviewing it again that your accent is not such that you would be readily and immediately identified as American. And so, we don’t really think we could have you in the Foreign Service.”

And I asked, “Well, what the hell am I supposed to do now?” And he said, “Well, because of the commitments we had made, we’ll give you the opportunity to go and speak to the head of the office to which we were going to assign you. And if he will take you, then we will not object.”

This was my first day in the State Department. I go over for the interview and, God bless him, William Witman said, “Look, I have a lot of work to do in this office. I can’t afford to have anyone here who isn’t going to be producing to meet what I require.”

And I said, “I think very highly of myself. And if you didn’t have work for me to do I wouldn’t want to be in your office,” And he said, “OK, you’ve got a job. Let’s see how it works out.”… And interestingly enough it was Bill, later when he was named Ambassador to Togo, who called up and asked if I would come and be his Deputy Chief of Mission. This allowed me to then get into that very exclusive class of people who get a chance to run missions.


Q: I came across a number of State Department documents, all the way from the 1940s, all the way, really, up into the 1960s talking about where the State Department could and could not send black Americans to serve because of the country’s practices and so forth. One of the areas that they seemed very tense about, was sending black Americans to Arabic nations. Did you find any problem?

TODMAN: Absolutely not! I am prepared to say that that business about not being able to send blacks was purely concocted within the State Department; it was made out of whole cloth. It was a total lie. I never found in any of the places that I went to that there was any question of any resentment or anything. The only question that people ever had, and you would get this as they got to talk to you, you would feel some doubt: “Does this person have the influence with his own country to be able to get for us what we need?”
But as far as color, as far as any of those other things were concerned, zero. The problem has been, and is, in the United States of America. The only opposition that I ever found, anywhere, has been from Americans. I found it in Costa Rica: Americans, only Americans. In Spain: Americans, only Americans.
In the Arab world? Not a hint, absolutely not a hint of it. And the Arab world would be the last place. You go through the Arab world and how many blacks do you find? And you find them doing everything. You find them in positions of importance, in their own country and they’re all over. So, this was story concocted by Americans to keep from doing these things. It’s damned nonsense.


TODMAN: A couple of reasons. One is American society as such. But another one is the Foreign Service, the Foreign Service corps. There’s a group that develops; it’s an in-group. Once you’re there, you preserve and protect it, and you want only people like you. Then it’s a heck of a lot easier to protect your own position. Also, it’s an elite group and one of the ways to insure that you maintain the sense of elitism is to not have too many people in who’ll be different. That’s part of the elite too.


The one case in which I’ve ever seen that to work was in AID when the man who was head of the Africa Bureau said, “You will bring blacks into this bureau.” I wrote about it sometime and made a speech on it, because it was so impressive. He refused to allow anybody else to be appointed. He got, as you always get, the same story: “We can’t find anyone qualified who will do it,” and then you say, “OK, if you can’t find anyone, then I guess I’ll have to yield.” But he said, “We won’t fill it.” And after a while the people who needed to get the work done realized that it was better to go ahead and get someone because he was serious about it.


And wanting your own kind doesn’t imply and is not intended to suggest any animosity towards others. Exclusion often isn’t because you hate one group or that you don’t want them; it’s often because you want some others and that effectively keeps out the other side, without there being any, “I don’t want you around.” It’s not, “I don’t want you around.” It is, “I want him around and I only have room for one.”…


Q: You held ambassadorial positions for about a quarter century, from the late-60s into the early-90s. Did you see any changes in the status and the position of the ambassador in terms of the foreign policy making chain of command in the United States during that period? Did the ambassador lose importance, gain importance? What kinds of changes took place, it any?


TODMAN: I think that the ambassador lost importance. I think that it started when you got a peripatetic secretary of state, who decided that if there’s any important issue he would have to go out personally and deal with it. And as this occurred you got chiefs of state saying that it’s not worth talking to the ambassador because that means it’s not important enough; we need to discuss it and we need the secretary to come. There used to be more roving ambassadors who would come and bring a special message sometimes, which was OK.


But the Secretary of State was at home controlling the whole thing and looking at it, and you could go back and ask about it. That’s gone. I think some areas of the world get neglected, totally, because there’s nobody back home minding the shop who can send out the serious kinds of instructions that you want. You don’t get the consistency you need. And some other areas get over-attended, but attended at a level that they shouldn’t be getting, at least in personal and direct terms. I think it’s a change for the worse. I don’t know whether or when we can ever recoup from that, but it’s unfortunate.


That has had a major difference in the way diplomacy is practiced, because now there’s a need for a lot more thoughtfulness and giving more rationale for action rather than telling what the action is– precision about what happened and explanations of why it happened, and bringing people along.


And the other way the role of the ambassador has been diminished, which is even worse, is by the number of direct contacts that are made between senior U.S. government officials and senior host country officials. Increasingly, people bypass the embassy totally and pick up the phone and call somebody that they met in a conference. And it doesn’t have to be from the Secretary, from the Department of State even, where at least you’d know what was going on, but it can be from any department that has business overseas, any of them, directly to counterparts in foreign governments, with the result that the department, the ambassador, may or may not know.


I have always contended, and continue to contend, that you don’t do this for the minorities, you do this for the United States. We need, as a country, the very best input that we can get into policy formulation and policy implementation. There are sensitivities that people bring into a meeting that you can’t get otherwise, and sometimes the very composition of the meeting, even if the person does nothing, becomes a reminder, when things are being considered, how they ought to be treated. It just clicks something there.


And the same person would see things differently, or speak about things, or approach things, in one context with one group of people, from the way he or she would do with a different group. And it’s not because of any bad intentions or anything else, it’s just that the circumstances, the atmosphere, bring out things that it’s important to have as input into our policy formulation and execution.


We’re denying ourselves of this by not bringing in minorities. When we’re talking about China, Japan, and other Asian countries, it would make an enormous amount of difference to have some people of Asian background sitting in that meeting as we discuss what we’re going to do. Just seeing them there, one would react differently. And inputs and sensitivities that they would have would make a difference. So, as I look for what is good for the United States, which is the bottom line for me, I think we’re doing ourselves an enormous disservice. And so I’ve raised it constantly over the years, and it’s just because there is no desire to act on it that nothing has happened.…


The unfortunate thing is that most of your problems are with your own government, because people don’t have a perspective of dealing with others. And we’re so accustomed, in this country, to having everything, to doing what we want, making what we want happen, that we’re not always as conscious about people out there. And we’re very quick to accuse people of localitis, which is unfortunate, because if the people who are on the scene don’t express what they’re seeing, then who is going to?


I used to spend a lot of time, as I spoke in communities around the United States, reminding people that much of what they made was sold overseas, much of what they used, consumed in the U.S., was made overseas, that they live in an interdependent world where the ties are everywhere. And you need some people who are doing the job of making sure that these things work and work primarily for the interest of the United States.


I think we get caught up also in military might, that we forget sometimes that that doesn’t solve anything. And so the role of the diplomat is somehow undervalued, even by people who are in government, in policy making. I think today we’re arriving at a time in the United States when we somehow feel that physical, military, security is the only thing that we should look for, and we don’t work with people if they’re not making a definite contribution to that. I think that we can lose a great deal if we get carried away with that, because there are issues of justice, there are issues of decency, of humanity, that are important.

[BlueMTexpat]

1. Thanks for your post!

I had the very great honor and pleasure to work with Ambassador Moose when he was Assistant Secretary of African Affairs and to see him again in Geneva, Switzerland when he was the Ambassador at the US Mission in Geneva, although I was no longer with the DOS by then, having moved to work with UNOG myself.

I would never have survived the Bush years at State. I was completely opposed to both wars: Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ambassador Moose is a wonderful man and attained the rank of Career Ambassador in 2002. Here's his Wiki write-up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Moose

I also had the honor and pleasure of working with Conrad Harper, the first black Legal Adviser of the Department of State at the same time that I worked with Ambassador Moose. He is another outstanding human being.

Here is Harper's Wiki write-up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_K._Harper

I literally weep at what the DOS has become and is becoming under the Trump Misadministration.