Diplomats

Ebenezer Bassett was born in 1833 in Derby, Connecticut. His father was an escaped slave and his mother was an American Indian. After high school, Bassett became the first black student at the Connecticut Normal School, now called Central Connecticut State University. While he was there be met and became friends with Frederick Douglass.

After college, he began teaching at the Institute for Colored Youth, later called Cheyney University of Pennsylvania. He taught Latin, Greek, and math. After one year, he became principal of the school. When the American Civil War broke out, Bassett became a leading voice for civil rights and the abolition of slavery.

After the war, Bassett continued teaching in Pennsylvania and speaking out for the civil rights of blacks. When Ulysses S Grant became president, Frederick Douglass suggested that Bassett be appointed to be the Minister Resident to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Grant nominated him and he was confirmed by the Senate. Bassett became the first black diplomat in American history as well as the highest African-American official ever in the national government.

When Bassett arrived in Haiti, he found the country in the middle of a civil war. He handled many cases in Haiti dealing with commercial claims, diseases, fires, hurricanes and other consular affairs. When the Grant Administration ended, he resigned his post and became the Consul General for Haiti in New York City.

Bassett's role as the first black diplomat became a symbol of progress towards civil rights in American. Bassett represented his country well within the diplomatic corps and proved himself to be a great American.

Bunche was born in Detroit, Michigan. When he was ten years old, his family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. However, both of his parents died two years later and his grandmother moved him and his two sisters to Los Angeles. Bunche worked odd jobs and also served as a house boy to a movie actor.

He became valedictorian of Jefferson High School, captain of the debate team and all-around athlete in football, basketball, baseball and track. He earned an athletic scholarship to UCLA in basketball and graduated in 1927, summa cum laude, valedictorian of his class with a major in international relations. He earned a scholarship to Harvard University and completed a master's degree in political science in 1928. He began teaching at Howard University as well as working on his doctorate at Harvard. He completed postdoctoral research at Northwestern University, the London School of Economics and Cape Town University in South Africa.

Bunche became the chair of the Department of Political Science at Howard University from 1928 to 1950. He taught at Harvard from 1950 to 1952. He served on the Board of Overseers of Harvard as well as the New York City Board of Education. He was also a trustee at three different universities.

Bunche worked tirelessly in the civil rights movement. He served as an advisor to Franklin Roosevelt. He was co-director of the Institute of Race Relations at Swarthmore College. He wrote "A World View of Race" in 1936 about race relations throughout the world. He help organize and participated political marches in Montgomery, Alabama with Martin Luther King, Jr.

Bunche served in the Department of State during World War II and then was appointed director of the Department of Trusteeship of the United Nations to handle areas of the world who had not yet attained self-government. His most important assignment with the United Nations was as principal secretary of the United Nations Palestine Commission and help broker an armistice agreement between Israel and the Arab States in 1948. As a result, he was given a ticker tape parade in New York City and was awarded the Spingarn Prize by the NAACP in 1949. He received over thirty honorary degrees in the early 1950s. Ultimately, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950.

Bunche became a great American by spreading the ideals of education, peace and cooperation throughout the world. His fame extended far beyond the United States and today he is known as one of the great diplomats of the 20th Century.

Clifton R. Wharton was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1899. His family moved to Boston and he attended English High School, the nation's oldest public high school. When he finished high school, he entered Boston University and received a bachelor's of law degree in 1920. He started his own law practice and earned his master's degree in 1923.

In 1924, he was offered a position as a law clerk at the State Department. The chairman of the personnel board was openly opposed to accepting blacks into the professional ranks, but Wharton's light skin may have helped him. He was given a job doing menial paperwork. Unsatisfied with the work, Wharton took the Foreign Service Exam. Of the 144 candidates, only 20 passed and Wharton was one of them. To marginalize his success, the personnel director said that he would be sent to Liberia. All black Foreign Service officers were either sent to Liberia, Haiti or the Canaries. After Wharton's success on the exam, blacks were excluded from foreign service from the department. Wharton was the only African-American admitted to the Foreign Service for the next 20 years.

Wharton would hold various posts throughout the world, including Liberia, the Canary Islands, Madagascar, and the Azores. This was known in the State Department as the "Negro Circuit." But in the late 1940s, President Harry S Truman issued an executive order integrating the US armed forces. This affected the State Department and in 1949, he was appointed to be diplomatic consul to Lisbon, Portugal. He served there for four years. Then, he became consul general in Marseille, France. Finally, in 1958 under President Dwight Eisenhower, Wharton broke the color barrier by becoming the first career foreign service officer to be appointed an Ambassador. First, he became ambassador to Romania. Then, under John F. Kennedy, he was made ambassador to Norway.

Wharton would go on to become a delegate to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and to the United Nations. He retired from the foreign service in 1964 as the first non-politically appointed African-American ambassador in American history. His son, Clifton Jr., would have a forty year career in the foreign service as well. But Clifton, Sr. paved the way for minorities to have a chance representing their country abroad. In 2006, the US Postal Service honored Clifton with his image on a stamp in its Distinguished American Diplomats series. Wharton's contributions and service to his country made him a great American.