African Americans in foreign policy in the United States catalogs distinguished African Americans who have and continue to contribute to international development, diplomacy, and defense through their work with the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. Information Agency, and the U.S. Congress, and other notable agencies and non-governmental organizations. The creators acknowledge the presence of the interagency contributions to the foreign affairs realm, and welcome additional content to showcase the achievements of African Americans in other relevant U.S. government agencies.
African Americans have mobilized to make visible issues to be reflected in American foreign policy decisions. African Americans continue to leverage knowledge of global issues and create linkages with people of color throughout the world to gain insight and allies in the struggle for equal rights. Whether the influence came from civic organizations, religious institutions or charismatic leaders, the African American voice has not been silent in articulating their views on how foreign policy should be created. African Americans also made recommendations and participated in the formation of foreign policy of the United States to shape domestic policy regarding civil and human rights.
The first African American diplomat, Yale graduate Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett, was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant as Minister Resident and Consul General in Haiti in 1869. From Bassett's appointment in 1869 through the 1930s, the United States sent scores of African American ministers, consuls, and other officials to regions including Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Many of these officials (including Frederick Douglass, James Weldon Johnson, Archibald Grimké, George Washington Ellis, and Henry Francis Downing) were also literary writers, and their work in international diplomacy influenced the ways in which they approached racial diplomacy during the New Negro era and the Harlem Renaissance. Between Bassett's appointment in 1869, every appointed ambassador to Haiti was African American except for one until Madison Roswell Smith was appointed in 1912.
It was not until 1924 when the Rogers Act combined the Consular and Diplomatic Service that James Carter and William Yerby became the first African Americans to enter the regular career Foreign Service. They were joined by Clifton Wharton, Sr. who was named Ambassador to Norway in 1961. After Wharton, Sr., no other African American entered the Foreign Service for the next 20 years. During this period, the U.S. Agency for International Development and its predecessor organization also hired a number of African Americans who distinguished themselves as senior diplomats.
African American ambassadors and senior diplomats have not all come from the ranks of the State Department and USAID. The former United States Information Agency began an active recruitment effort aimed at African Americans in the latter part of the 1950s and 1960s and attracted numerous officers who achieved ambassadorial rank. African Americans have also played a major role in international affairs with the United Nations and United States Congress. Recent efforts made by Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright, Colin L. Powell and Condoleezza Rice, and Hillary Clinton to increase diversity in the Department and to attract more minorities to the Foreign Service bode well for augmenting the under-representative number of African Americans in the Service and for achieving a broader geographical distribution of African American Ambassadors throughout the world.
Pioneers in the industry This section spotlights pioneers in the industry, the first African Americans to represent the U.S. government abroad, and those who have represented the U.S. government foreign affairs agencies at the highest levels.
First African American diplomat
Ebenezer Don Carlos Basset was the first African American diplomat. He was Minister Resident and Consul General in Haiti from 1869 to 1877.
Vincent Lamantia of New Orleans was a Sicilian-Egyptian diplomat and General Consul to Catania, Sicily from the USA appointed by President Grover Cleveland in 1887 according to Senate nomination. Lamantia would have been the first or one of the first US diplomats to a European nation in 1887 as Sicily became part of the Kingdom of Italy on 17 March 1861.
First African American consul
On October 29, 1845, Thomas O. Larkin, U.S. Consul in Monterey, California (then part of Mexico) appointed William A. Leidesdorff as Vice Consul at Yerba Buena (now San Francisco). Leidesdorff was born in the Danish West Indies (now the U.S. Virgin Islands) to a Danish planter and an Afro-Caribbean woman in 1810. He was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1834 while living in New Orleans. While living in California, he became a Mexican citizen in 1844 in order to increase his landholdings. His service as Vice Consul lasted until U.S. forces occupied northern California in July 1846. Leidesdorff died in San Francisco on May 18, 1848.
First African American Ambassador
Edward R. Dudley was appointed Minister to Liberia in 1948 and promoted to Ambassador to Liberia in 1949.
First African American Woman Ambassador
Patricia Roberts Harris was the first African American Woman in U.S. history to hold the rank of ambassador when she was appointed as Ambassador to Luxembourg on June 4, 1965, and presented her credentials on September 7. She served until September 22, 1967.
First African American Career Ambassador
In 1990, Terence Todman was the first African American to be promoted to the rank of Career Ambassador, the highest rank in the Foreign Service.
First African American Woman Career Ambassador
Ruth A. Davis is the first African American woman to be promoted to the rank of Career Ambassador, the highest rank in the Foreign Service. As Director of the Foreign Service Institute (1977–2001) Davis established the School of Leadership and Management and as Director General of the Foreign Service (2001 to 2003) she led the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative, increasing staffing and better enabling the Department to meet the foreign policy challenges of the 21st century.
First African American Foreign Service Officer
Clifton Reginald Wharton Sr. joined the Foreign Service in 1925, after passing the Foreign Service Exam in 1924. He became the first African American Foreign Service Officer to become chief of a diplomatic mission when he was appointed Minister to Romania on February 5, 1958. This appointment made him the first of his race to be chief of a diplomatic mission to a European country. He served in Romania until October 21, 1960. He then served as Ambassador to Norway from April 18, 1961, to September 4, 1964.
First African American Medical Director
Dr. LaRae Washington Kemp served as the Assistant Secretary of the Department of State for Health Affairs and Medical Director for the U.S. State Department and Foreign Service (1991–1994).
First African American Civil Service Employee to Serve as Ambassador
Barry L. Wells is the first African American Civil Service employee to serve as a United States Ambassador. Before his December 2007 appointment as Ambassador to the Gambia, Wells was named in February 2007, as the Department's first Chief diversity officer following a 17-year career at the Foreign Service Institute, and culminated as Deputy Director.
First African American Secretary of State
Colin Powell was appointed United States Secretary of State by President George W. Bush in January 2001, was the inaugural African American Secretary of State. As Secretary of State, he was the highest-ranking official of the Department. Prior to Secretary Powell, Clifton R. Wharton, Jr. had been the highest-ranking African American in the Department.
First African American Woman Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice became the 66th Secretary of State under President George W. Bush on January 26, 2005, and is the first African American woman to serve as Secretary of State. As Secretary of State, she is the highest-ranking official of the Department.
First African American Deputy Secretary of State
Clifton R. Wharton, Jr. was the first African American to hold the number two position in the State Department, Deputy Secretary of State from January 27 to November 8, 1973. He is the son of pioneering Foreign Service Officer Amb. Clifton R. Wharton, Sr.
First African American Assistant Secretary of State
Barbara M. Watson became Administrator of the Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs on July 31, 1968, and served until December 31, 1974. She was re-appointed on April 7, 1977. On August 17 of that year, she became Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs, and served until September 11, 1980. She was also the first woman who held the title of Assistant Secretary, and later served as Ambassador to Malaysia in 1980–81.
First African American to Represent the United States at the United Nations
Edith S. Sampson is an American diplomat who was appointed by President Harry Truman as an alternate U.S. delegate to the United Nations in August 1950, making her the first African American to officially represent the United States at the UN.
First African American to Serve as Deputy United States Ambassador to the United Nations
James Nabrit Jr. was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to serve as Deputy United States Ambassador to the United Nations from 1965 to 1967, becoming the first African American to hold this position.
First African American President of the United States
Barack Obama was the first African American President of the United States. During his presidency, he was involved in directing U.S. foreign policy, including efforts to end the war in Iraq, modernize the military, address the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, strengthen international alliances and partnerships, and provide foreign aid while supporting democratic institutions abroad.
First African American (and South Asian) Vice-President of the United States
Kamala Harris is the first African American and South Asian Vice President of the United States. She is the highest-ranking female elected official in U.S. history.
First African American Secretary of Defense
Lloyd Austin is a four-star general, who was nominated by President Biden to be the Secretary of Defense. He is the first African American to hold this role.
Notable mentions
John Edward West Thompson was nominated on May 7, 1885, by President Cleveland minister resident and consul-general to Haiti. James Milton Turner was chosen by President Grant to be the U.S. minister resident consul general to Liberia 1871–1878. Despite his humble beginning as a slave, James Milton Turner became a prominent African American politician during the Reconstruction period in the United States. William Frank Powell (1848–1920), on June 17, 1897, became the first American appointed to the new title of envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Haiti (and also chargé d'affaires to the Dominican Republic) by President McKinley. John L. Waller was appointed consul at Tamatave, Madagascar in February 1891. He served at this post until January 1894. John Terres served as U.S. consul at Port-au-Prince in 1905. Frederick Douglass, a known abolitionist, served as chargé d'affaires at the Embassy of the Dominican Republic in 1899. William H. Hunt, William Yerby, and James Carter, were the first African American FSOs, "grandfathered" in when the Rogers Act took effect in 1924, combining consular and diplomatic service.