November 2023 - Racism in the State Department
When Ambassador Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley stepped down as the State Department’s first Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer this past summer, she recalled the bigotry she faced from the start: “When I came in, people expected me to get coffee or that I was support staff.” Before a Congressional committee she explained “how the Department of State has hindered, undervalued, demoralized and destroyed the dreams of some of her best and brightest because of bias, racism and quiet discrimination.”
A century ago, the 1924 Foreign Service Act was meant to stamp out discrimination through merit-based and race-blind examinations. But personnel examiners made sure that if Black candidates passed the written exam, their oral exam would be graded down and so they’d be rejected. Decades later, tactics changed. In the 1950’s State Department authorities blocked Black candidates involved in organizations like the N.A.A.C.P. because they were “subversives.” Racism shaped the “lily white State Department,” which remained an “old boys’ club” that was predominantly “pale, male, and Yale.”
Into this world stepped Terence A. Todman. Born in 1926 in the Virgin Islands to a working-class family, he served in the U. S. Army, finished college, and earned an MA from Syracuse University. He passed the Foreign Service Exam and eventually became fluent in French, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic. Nevertheless, he was initially denied Foreign Service positions because, he recalled being told, “we only can take one hundred percent identifiable Americans. And with that accent of yours, you don't pass muster.”
In 1957, while working in lower-level positions at the Foreign Service Institute in Virginia, segregation barred him from the only local restaurant. Only after his persistent complaints did officials rent part of a local restaurant where non-whites could eat. A partition separating black customers from the “whites only” section reminded him of his second-class status.
So too did his being considered only for positions in Africa or the Caribbean. For years Black diplomats were only offered less influential posts on the “Negro circuit.” In a 1995 interview Todman explained, “I resented, and I still resent, the ‘ghetto’ assignment of blacks to Africa or to Caribbean nations…. And the United States still does that. We haven't learned a thing over all these years.” According to Ambassador Abercrombie-Winstanley, today only 13% of the State Department employees are people of color. Eric Rubin, president of the American Foreign Service Association, stated that the diplomatic corps is less diverse today than in 1986.
Former U.S. diplomat Naa Koshie Mills claims the State Department is “embedded with practices which deny people of color opportunities, rob them of a respectful work environment, and perpetuate harassment and bias.” Christopher Richardson, another former Ambassador, concurred: “the State Department’s failure to attract black applicants is not by chance. It is by design. U.S. diplomats today inherit a racist system that was designed to keep African-Americans out.”
Abercrombie-Winstanley is “not proud of how the Department of State has hindered, undervalued, demoralized and destroyed the dreams of some of her best and brightest because of bias, racism and quiet discrimination.” In 2022, eight years after Todman died, she was pleased to rename the State Department cafeteria to honor him. She cited Todman’s inspirational bravery: “we must hold perpetrators of bullying, harassment, and discriminatory behaviors accountable for their actions. This means we need to build a culture of courage, the kind of culture Ambassador Todman lived and embodied.”
Further actions:
1) Learn about how U. S. diplomatic efforts often put corporate interests above racial justice. For example, President Harrison appointed seventy-one year old Frederick Douglass as Minister to Haiti in hopes that Douglass could be used to help U. S. businesses exploit the struggling Black republic. Douglass refused and was blamed by the administration for ineffective “diplomatic relations” with the hemisphere’s first independent Black nation.
2) Understand how often racist policies are built on myths. For example, the State Department lied when it insisted that Black foreign service officers would be ineffective due to racism in the nations where they desired to serve. Todman responded, “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 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…. It's damned nonsense.”
3) Celebrate the similarities of two Black “troublemakers.” John Lewis reveled in making “good trouble” by challenging systemic racism. Terence Todman didn’t shrink from stirring things up to challenge bigotry. He said, “I was considered a troublemaker, and that was all right.”
4) Know that Black diplomats recall being belittled by white colleagues. In 2007, former ambassador Aurelia E. Brazeal spoke of being viewed through the prism of race rather than being acknowledged for her talents. She recounted arriving in Kenya in 1993 as the new U.S. ambassador, only to be ignored and dismissed by the outgoing white ambassador, Smith Hempstone. Brazeal shared that “He was reported to have said, ‘Ah, a Black woman ambassador to Kenya. Kenya doesn’t matter anymore.’”
5) Share with friends this PBS American Experience documentary, The American Diplomat, about three Black Diplomats, Todman along with Edward R. Dudley and Carl Rowan. It emphasizes the tension that existed between U. S. foreign policy, often tainted by racist assumptions, and Black diplomats. Thanks to Jared B. Hughes of the Dacor Bacon House, Washington DC where some interviews were filmed.