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Ambassadors, U.S.
African Americans' role as ambassadors at diplomatic missions around the world. Since the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, African Americans have often been assigned to top diplomatic missions in Haiti and Liberia, both predominantly black nations. However, it has only been since after World War II that they began serving in other embassies around the globe, mostly in the black nations of Africa.
Several African Americans also have served as U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations (UN), beginning with Andrew Young, who was appointed to that post by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. Carter also appointed Young's successor, Donald F. McHenry, in 1979. In 1992, President George Bush appointed Edward J. Perkins to the UN post; Perkins had earlier served as the U.S. ambassador to Liberia and South Africa under the Reagan administration.
One of the most prominent African American diplomats of the modern era was Ralph Bunche (1904–1971), who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950 for his mediation of the conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine. Although never an ambassador to a foreign nation, Bunche served in many top-level State Department positions, including acting chief of its Division of Dependent Area Affairs. At the end of World War II, he became principal secretary of the United Nations Palestine Commission and later served as a special representative to UN interests in the Congo, Cyprus, Kashmir, and Yemen. From 1968 until his death, Bunche served the world body as undersecretary general.
Ambassadors to Haiti and Liberia
The first African American to serve in an overseas diplomatic mission was Ebenezer Don Carlos Basset, who was the minister resident and consul general in Haiti from 1869 to 1877 during the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant. Five other African Americans served in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, until 1913, including prominent abolitionist Frederick Douglass (1889–1891), who was appointed to the post by President Benjamin Harrison.
Between 1871 and 1948, seventeen African Americans served as minister resident and consul general in Liberia, beginning with James Milton Turner (1871–1878) and ending with Raphael O'Hara Lanier (1946–1948). After 1949, the Liberian post was considered worthy of a full ambassadorship; the first full ambassador to Liberia was Edward R. Dudley, an African American diplomat appointed by President Truman. Dudley later became a public official in New York City and was the second African American to become the borough president of Manhattan. All of these diplomats helped solidify close ties between the United States and Liberia, but these ties later deteriorated in the twentieth century. The ambassadors embodied the philosophy of the so-called Americoliberians, who tried to protect Liberia from interference by European powers.
Ambassadors to Nonblack Nations
President John F. Kennedy appointed the first African Americans as ambassadors to nonblack nations: Clifton R. Wharton to Norway (1961) and Carl T. Rowan to Finland (1963). Rowan was a prominent author and journalist who later became director of the United States Information Agency.
Other African American ambassadors to nonblack nations included appointments by President Lyndon B. Johnson: Patricia Roberts Harris to Luxembourg (1965) and Hugh Smythe to the Syrian Arab Republic (1965) and to Malta (1967). Patricia Harris later chaired the Democratic National Committee and served in the cabinet of President Jimmy Carter.
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