Blacks in the U.S. Diplomatic and Consular Services, 1869–1924

This chapter surveys the experiences of black Americans in the early foreign service. The U.S. Department of State was the first major government department to appoint blacks to positions of prestige. This generation included John L. Waller, Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, and Richard T. Greener, as well as career officer William Henry Hunt. Such progressivism occurred in an atmosphere of pervasive racism and reflected not only the varying interests of the two major political parties but also the growing disenfranchisement of blacks through the Jim Crow laws. Ultimately, these early officers faced personal dilemmas born out of contrasting experiences abroad and at home.