[VIDEO PLAYBACK] - As Foreign Service officers,
you are sample Americans. People abroad will think better
or worse of the United States because of what you do. - The State Department had
the well-deserved reputation of being extremely elitist. It was pale, male, and Yale. - Fact of the matter
was, they could never conceive that a Black man
could ever be an ambassador. - It's difficult to
fully conceptualize what it meant to be Black in
the government during that time period. - These three diplomats
represented progress. But it was an uphill battle. - He wanted his
voice to be heard. He wanted a seat at the table. - I, Carl T. Rowan,
solemnly swear-- - He was not simply going to
push papers and have photo ops. He wanted to do things. - If one was an
ambassador, there was a feeling that this man
was a true representative of the country. - But which United
States do they represent? The paragon of
democracy, or the America that kept African-Americans
in second-class citizenship? - It is hard to do
the work of America when you have been Jim Crowed
by your own government. - The institutional
culture wasn't going to change on its own. It was going to change
by being confronted, by being embarrassed. - Sure, we're going
to be criticized. It's because we're
talking about the things that the United
States stands for. - For diplomats,
you're fighting America so that it can live up to what
it says it is, while you're also fighting for America. That is no easy walk. [PIANO MUSIC PLAYING] [END PLAYBACK] RACHEL FLOR: Good evening. I'm Rachel Flor, executive
director of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. On behalf of all of my library
and foundation colleagues, I am so delighted to welcome
all of you who are watching tonight's program online. To open, I humbly start
with a land acknowledgment to recognize the Indigenous
tribes of the Pawtucket and Massachusett peoples of the
Wampanoag Tribal Confederation territories, who both past and
present and throughout many generations have stewarded
the land where the Kennedy Library is today. While a land acknowledgment
is not enough, it's an important way to
promote Indigenous visibility, and it serves as a reminder that
we are on stolen and settled Indigenous land. | invite all of
us to contemplate how to better support
Indigenous communities and to learn how to honor
and take care of the land that each of us inhabits. I would also like to
acknowledge the generous support of our underwriters of the
Kennedy Library Forum's lead sponsors, Bank of America,
the Lowell Institute, and AT&T, and our media sponsors
the Boston Globe and WBUR. And we thank GBH and
PBS's American Experience for their partnership in
bringing this exciting preview of The American Diplomat to the
library virtually this evening. We look forward to a robust
question-and-answer period this evening. You'll see full
instructions on screen for submitting your
questions by email or comments on our YouTube
page during the program. The American Diplomat
spotlights three pioneering Black diplomats-- Edward R. Dudley, Terence
Todman, and Carl Rowan, assigned to advocate
for American ideals abroad while contending
with racism at home. We are so pleased tonight
to have the opportunity to explore their
extraordinary work and legacy in more detail
in tonight's preview and in the discussion
that follows. I am delighted to
welcome tonight's distinguished panelists
to the library virtually. Ambassador Aurelia Brazeal
retired from the US Foreign Service in 2008 with the
rank of career minister, after a distinguished
40-year career. She was a pioneer in
being the first to serve in a newly created
position, and is the first African-American woman
career Foreign Service officer to be promoted in the
Senior Foreign Service, and the first to be
nominated as an ambassador. Leola Calzolai-Stewart is
the director and producer of The American Diplomat. She brings over 15 years'
experience in documentary film and is co-founder of the
Virginia-based production company Flowstate Films. She has also lived in
the diplomatic world for 18 years, an experience
that enriched her approach to the storytelling. The American Diplomat is
Leola's directorial debut. Adriane Lentz-Smith is
an associate professor and associate chair in
Duke's department of history, where she teaches courses
on the civil rights movement, Black lives,
modern America, and history and fact and fiction. She is author of
Freedom Struggles: African-Americans
and World War I. And our moderator, Cameo George,
is the executive producer of American Experience, PBS's
longest-running and most watched history series. We look forward to
the conversation with our special guests
following an extended preview of The American
Diplomat focusing on the stories of Ambassador
Terence Todman and Ambassador Carl Rowan. But first, I'm honored to
introduce Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the
United States representative to the United Nations, and
Pat Harrison, president and CEO of the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting, to say a few words. LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD:
Thank you so much, Rachel, for that introduction. And thank you to the
JFK Library, GBH Boston, and American Experience
for hosting this preview. It's an honor to introduce The
American Diplomat, a film that tells the stories of
Edward R. Dudley, Terence Todman, and Carl Rowan,
three Black ambassadors who broke barriers not just
in the State Department but for our country. When I first joined the
Foreign Service in 1982, Terence Todman was
already a phenomenon. In those early days, I was too
nervous to even talk to him. He was a living legend to us,
and as far as I was concerned, he could have been
the president. But this-- but his
counsel and his example would prove to be invaluable. The same was true
for Carl Rowan. He had already left
the State Department by the time I arrived. He'd gone back to pursuing
his prestigious career as a journalist. Fortunately, he returned
to deliver a lecture to a group of young Black
Foreign Service officers, including me, where I was
able to glean his insights. Perhaps the biggest
insight of all was simply seeing those
giants pave the way. I felt this personally when
I first arrived as ambassador to Liberia. As I walked into
the US Embassy, I was struck by the line of
photos of previous ambassadors. There, at the very beginning,
was Ambassador Edward R. Dudley. Visually, I could see how
he forged a path for us. After him in the
line of photos was a string of Black
ambassadors, and now here I was, arriving as the first
female ambassador to Liberia. As you'll hear in the
film, Ambassador Dudley saw that the State
Department was restricting the assignments
of Black officers to African and Caribbean posts. He pushed back
against that policy, because he understood
the breadth and depth of talent, expertise, and
knowledge that Black officers brought to the world stage. By the time I arrived
at the Foreign Service, I wanted to serve in Africa. I asked to serve in Africa. And thanks to the leadership
of Dudley and so many others, that choice was determined by
my passion and not by prejudice. The history of
American diplomacy has been led by Black
diplomats determined to make a difference. That includes female
Black diplomats, too, like ambassadors Ruth
Davis, Barbara Watson, Aurelia Brazeal, who were
pioneers in their own right. I hope somebody makes a movie
about them one day, too, and just maybe I'll be included. These trailblazers
and so many others understood a simple concept. Racial diversity is America's
strength, not its weakness. It took hard work
and the sacrifices of many great foreign and
Civil Service officers and specialists before
the State Department and the United States
government embraced this powerful principle. Today, we do. Every day, I have
the great privilege of sitting behind the
United States placard and representing America
to the United Nations. And with a diverse
team behind me, I am better able to advocate
for America's interests across the globe. So I hope you enjoy
hearing and seeing the unvarnished stories of how
these three men helped change the State Department
and, in turn, our country and our world. And now, I'm happy
to turn it over to President and CEO of
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Pat Harrison. Pat, over to you. PAT HARRISON: Thank
you, ambassador. And thank you to
American Experience and also to Rachel Flor
with the JFK Presidential Library for hosting this virtual
screening of The American Diplomat. And of course to Jon Abbott
and the great team at GBH. Welcome to all of you. I had the great honor to
serve as assistant secretary for educational and
cultural affairs, and acting undersecretary for
public diplomacy and public affairs, reporting to
Secretary Colin Powell and later to Secretary
Condoleezza Rice. So I'm very pleased to be here
to recognize the groundbreaking work of Edward Dudley, Terence
Todman, and Carl Rowan. Three American diplomats,
African-Americans, who had to overcome the
ingrained cultural thinking, the limited vision that
only certain people-- and that did not include
Blacks, Jews, or women-- could represent America
and serve as ambassadors. One of my favorite writers
is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who said, "Stories matter. Stories have been used to
dispossess and to malign, yes, but stories can also be used
to empower and humanize," she said. Public media is acknowledged
as America's storyteller, and the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting, CPB, is proud to fund diverse
stories, content makers, and producers to tell America's
constantly changing story. Rowan, Dudley, and
Todman's stories are important to our
history and to our future. CPB is also proud to be a funder
of American Experience, which consistently provides content
of value, content that educates, informs, and inspires, as we all
aspire to be better citizens. The American
Diplomat is a result of dedication and commitment
on the part of so many, and I want to thank Black Public
Media and Firelight Documentary Lab, filmmaker Leola
Calzolai-Stewart, presenting station GBH, and all the local
public television stations throughout the country. Great appreciation to Ambassador
Aurelia Brazeal and historian Adriane Lentz-Smith, and
of course to Cameo George and the outstanding team
at American Experience, all of you for making The
American Diplomat a reality and for being here this evening. Thank you on behalf of CPB. CAMEO GEORGE: Hello, everyone. Thank you again for being here. I'm so excited to speak
to our filmmaker, Leola Calzolai-Stewart, a real-life
American diplomat, Ambassador Aurelia Brazeal, and
historian Adriane Lentz-Smith about this wonderful,
wonderful film. Before we begin, I'd
like to acknowledge the funders of this film. Liberty Mutual Insurance, the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the National Endowment
for the Humanities, the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting, the Estate of Marsha Feinhandler
through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the
Robert David Lion Gardner Foundation, the Documentary
Investment Group, PBS, GBH, and of course, viewers like you. Leola, I am going
to start with you. I am so, so proud of
this film and thrilled to have worked with you
on your directorial debut. Can you tell us a little bit
about the genesis of this film and how it came to be? How you discovered
the story, and what it took to bring it to life? LEOLA CALZOLAI-STEWART: Yeah. So the story really came as a
convergence of several things. One thing that was
mentioned in the intros is that I've been a part of
the Foreign Service world. My husband is a Black diplomat. We've actually been in the
Foreign Service community, if I do the math,
almost 20 years now. So it's been quite a while. And oftentimes in that
experience, we've come to post and been one of the
few families of color, one of the few Black
families, at post overseas. And so, that starts to-- you start to ask
questions why, want to dig a little deeper
into why that's so. At the same time, my husband,
over the course of his career, would meet these
incredible Black diplomats who would speak about
their early days in the Foreign Service. People like Ruth Davis
and Ambassador Brazeal, and how they came up through and
navigated the Foreign Service. And he often thought
that these were stories that not many people
knew about, and worried that the details
of these stories would pass away and not be
known to the wider public. And he handed me this book
called Black Diplomacy by Michael Krenn, and these
three things together I think really served as a
jumping-off point to dive deeper into that
history, to learn more about early diplomats, dive into
these oral history archives. And I brought the
idea to my partners at Flowstate Films, my
co-producing partners Kiley Kraskouskas and Rachell
Shapiro, and they also thought it was a compelling
piece of history to dive into. And we decided to
tell these stories and develop them into a film. CAMEO GEORGE: And
Ambassador Brazeal, as an ambassador and
a career minister, watching this film,
what strikes you the most about these men, their
careers, and their service? Does it resonate with
you and your time in the Foreign Service? AURELIA BRAZEAL: It does. And what resonates
with me most is that they were activists
both on the policy side as well as on the programmatic
side in their countries, and that they always
questioned conventional wisdom. They didn't settle
for the status quo. And they tried to bring
change to the State Department and Foreign Service systems. And they also met ordinary
citizens of the country that they were in and not just
the officials in government. So those three things
resonated with me, because I tried to pursue
those three items in my career. I benefited from the
changes that they brought, so that one of the-- I think Barbara Watson at the
time, who was the first Black woman, equivalent of
an assistant secretary at the State Department,
met with a few of us when we came in, a
few Black officers, and suggested that we should
be worldwide available, not just the Negro circuit,
so that I didn't come to Africa until
late in my career, because of that admonition
to be worldwide available. So I could see reflected in many
things that happened to me what these three ambassadors
had worked on, in terms of issues to change
both internally in the State Department as well as
representing the United States overseas. CAMEO GEORGE: And ambassador,
this question is to you, but really, actually, it's
for all of our panelists. Why was it important to
be worldwide available, and what do we gain from having
Black diplomats, Black Foreign Service officers, available
to be stationed anywhere? What is so special about,
or important about, bringing that
diversity to the core? AURELIA BRAZEAL:
Well, I think we've heard that diversity
is America's strength, and it brings-- the diversity in
the Foreign Service now brings new voices
to the table when you're trying to
formulate policy as well as when you're
trying to practice diplomacy. So that you need these
voices because it challenges that conventional thinking,
it challenges groupthink, it gives you more
options, it gives you a different perspective. And how do you have that? Because of our own
experience in this country. Frankly, in my view, in the
21st century, and the position that the United States
currently has in the world, which has been weakened,
it seems to me and my-- over the past four or five years
of our internal situation here in the US, American
diplomats are going to have to register the
fact that now we're just one among many voices in the
world speaking on issues, and they're going
to have to adjust. We already know how
to be a minority. And so we're
comfortable with that, I think, as a Black diplomat. CAMEO GEORGE: And I didn't
know if anyone else was going to add to that. LEOLA CALZOLAI-STEWART: Well,
I think Ambassador Brazeal said it best. I think diplomats also bring
lived experience to their work. And so to have a diversity
and that lived experience, to be able to connect with
other people and other cultures on different levels
and more nuanced ways, I think strengthens
the Foreign Service and strengthens
American diplomacy. And to create a more
inclusive Foreign Service is part of creating that more
nuanced American diplomacy, I think. ADRIANE LENTZ-SMITH:
I think the point that the ambassadors in the
film were trying to make also holds true, which is, it's
a planet filled with people, various peoples, you know, of
hues, backgrounds, experiences, what have you. And so to be able
to communicate-- to represent America
as being as varied and heterogeneous as the
globe itself actually makes the nation seem
more appealing, more open. It's having a diverse
Foreign Service also says-- I mean as, again, the diplomats
in the documentary said, white supremacy is not going to
be our national project going forward. CAMEO GEORGE: And
so in tonight's clip we learned about Terrence
Todman and Carl Rowan, but when our viewers get
an opportunity to watch the full film on Tuesday
night on PBS or on our website AmericanExperience.org,
they'll meet the first African-American
ambassador, Edward Dudley. In addition to being the
first, why was his service so important and so impactful? Adriane, can you talk a
little bit about that? And then maybe Leola, as well? ADRIANE LENTZ-SMITH: Sure,
I'll talk for a minute, and then Leola can jump in
and correct me, because this is her area of expertise. So Edward Dudley mattered
because he was the first, and because he changed what
service meant for everyone. He was assigned-- he
was sent to Liberia, he was elevated to the
position of ambassador, and he looked around and
said, all of the staff here, all of the Black
people on staff here, have remained in a
very narrow circuit. They have only
been to the handful of places that are comfortable
for the administration. Comfortably Black
countries, right? They're not sending
them to Europe. They're not sending them
to places with mostly or majority white people. And Edward Dudley was a-- he was a lawyer by training. He'd come out of the
NAACP's legal wing. And he said, to paraphrase
Terence Todman later, "I don't have a problem,
you have a problem. You're breaking the law. And what I'm going to do is
offer you the opportunity to fix yourself." And so he pushed
the State Department to begin assigning
people broadly. People on his
staff suddenly were going to Paris or elsewhere. Places that they'd
never been before. And to track back to our
answer to the last question, it allowed the US to
represent itself in something more akin to the fullness
of the population. Not totally, there's
still very many limits and not enough people. But it was an opening, right? He cracked something open. LEOLA CALZOLAI-STEWART: I
can't add anything to that. I mean, Adriane, you said
it very well, you know? Edward R. Dudley, he
saw a morale problem and used his skills as a
lawyer very strategically to quietly but effectively
try to enact some change. And as Adriane said,
soon after, people that were posted in Liberia
were sent to Paris, Switzerland, and Rome. And that created-- opened that
door just a little bit wider for Black diplomats to break
free of that Negro circuit, as it was called. CAMEO GEORGE: And Leola,
you've shared with us that you live this life
as a diplomatic spouse, and you and your husband have
benefited from breaking open this Negro circuit. Can you-- just a little
personal information, can you share with
us some of the places that you've been stationed? LEOLA CALZOLAI-STEWART: Sure. You know, I really
appreciated Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield's
opening statements, because our first post
was one that we chose. It was our number one. When you go into
the A 100 class, you have to list
like your top three. I can't remember if it
was top three or top five or something like that. And number one on
our list was Mali. And so we served, my husband
served in Mali for two years. That was his first posting. We were in South Africa. Came back to DC for a while. We were in Belgium,
Brazil, and now Canada. CAMEO GEORGE: But I just, I
love that you talked about Mali and then South Africa
being your choices, and Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield
spoke about it, as well. It's the beauty of
having the option. It's not saying that you don't
want to go to these places, but just that you want
to have the option and, as Ambassador Brazeal
said, being worldwide available. Like that is the
real beauty, to me, of what we learned about
Edward R. Dudley in this film. So I really appreciate that. I have more questions for you. But I'm also starting to get
questions from the audience. So I'm actually going to jump
to you the first audience question. And it is, how did the
US and its diplomats view African nationalism
for independence, which parallels the
African-American struggle for freedom and equality? LEOLA CALZOLAI-STEWART:
Well, I'll just say very quickly, because
I see Ambassador Brazeal has a comment. You know, I think, for example,
Terence Todman saw the struggle as very similar. I mean, he knew that the
future of Africa was Africa. It wasn't colonial leadership. And I think he used
every opportunity that he could to
make that clear, that the US needed
to start recognizing African independence
movements as the future, and that colonial
powers were no longer the experts on these countries. And something that I
thought was very interesting that Adriane pointed out
early on in our discussions about Terence Todman was that,
who better would understand that than someone who had
grown up in the US Virgin Islands, who understood this
idea of American imperialism, too, and understood the
importance of independence? And I think for someone
like Terence Todman, he really understood
that the future of Africa was independence. But I know Ambassador Brazeal
had a comment, as well. AURELIA BRAZEAL: Well,
I was going to jump in, and it's maybe almost a
pitch for diverse people to think of the Foreign
Service as a career, but what excited me
was Ralph Bunche. If we remember, Ralph Bunche
served at the United Nations, an American Black diplomat. And he was instrumental
in setting up what was called the Council
in the United Nations, where colonial powers had to
report every year what they were doing with their
colonial countries, in terms of setting them on
the path to independence. That was monumental. The setting, as a diplomat,
as a Black diplomat, the setting up of this
anti-colonial conference in the United Nations led to
the demise of colonialism. Just the simple fact of thinking
to set up this committee where people had to report. So I've seen in my
life Black diplomats like Ralph Bunche and then
Edward Dudley and Terence Todman and Carl
Rowan and others, through their policy ideas,
set up the ground where countries become
independent of themselves, and US policy can
become independent of the colonial powers'
view of what is happening. And you get that thread
throughout our history in the 20th century, and
to me that was exciting, and one of the reasons I
thought of the Foreign Service as a career was what
these people were able to do policy-wise. ADRIANE LENTZ-SMITH: Yeah. So the thing to underscore
there is that it's not just perspectives. It's practices. It's policies and practices. And the presence of folks,
the practices matter. Because what they also do is
provide different ways in, or different ways of reacting,
than might happen otherwise. So if we think, again, to this
period that the question asked about, the civil rights era,
which is also the Cold War, which is also the era of
decolonization, right? But the inclination of
the administrations, particularly if we
start at early Cold War, earlyish Cold War with
Eisenhower and such, is to see the push for
decolonization or African nationalism or Pan-Africanism
as communist-inspired, right? As if people didn't have some
reason to want independence that would be
generated from them. In the same way
that in the South, the defenders of Jim Crow would
talk about outside agitators, as if Black Southerners
didn't understand what they didn't have and
didn't want it themselves. So there are sort of lazy
but dogmatic applications of their ways of
thinking, that having Black folks in place, having
the sort of grand policy minds like Ralph Bunche,
could disrupt and counter. CAMEO GEORGE: And we're
all talking about-- one of the things that
we're talking about, and that we see in
this film that's so interesting, is this ability
to change from the inside, right? Like there are moments for
each of these three men where you can imagine them
questioning, "Why am I here? I'm banging my head
against the wall. I believe in this great project,
and I believe in my presence here, and I believe
in my own abilities. But it's hard,
because not everyone that I work with, not everyone
that I'm interacting with, believes in me and believes in
my being here in the same way." Can we talk a little
bit about that conflict, and what it must have been like
to have a foot in both worlds? AURELIA BRAZEAL: W.E.B. DuBoise. Double consciousness. I think, as I try to
suggest, African-Americans know how to be a minority, and
we have coping skills for that. Other-- our white
fellow citizens sometimes don't have
those coping skills. They don't know what to do. But I-- in the 20th century,
I think one of the positives was that we had our
domestic politics stopping at the water's edge. That was how people
approached foreign policy. Our leaders, elected leaders,
both at the national and local levels, basically our politics
stopped at the water's edge. And so that there
was a consistency to our foreign policy
that was, I think, welcomed because you
could see the through line of the civil rights
era loosening things up, and we were becoming
more inclusive, and we could talk
to foreign countries about that inclusivity. One of the things I
tried to do as a diplomat is to always keep the
United States relevant. And to be relevant, we have
to reflect the changes that are ongoing in this society. And in the 21st century,
our politics no longer stop at the water's
edge, seemingly. And it's going to be much
more difficult, I think, to keep the United
States relevant, because we don't have that
consistency necessarily in our foreign policy worldwide. ADRIANE LENTZ-SMITH:
So Ambassador Brazeal, you said in the film something
that I wrote down and will repeat in classes,
where you said, "The currency of
diplomacy is optimism." So part of the
answer is that these were people who believed that
they could do something that mattered, and they had
to have that optimism, or they wouldn't have taken on
what was, on the face of it, an impossible task. I'm also struck by the fact that
at least with Todman and Rowan, and I suspect this is true
of Dudley, what comes across is that these are men
with tremendous senses of themselves, their capability,
and their consequence. And that is both armor
and fuel for the task that they had before them. And then I think the
other part of it, and I think where the context
of the civil rights movement helps them, if we're going
to link back to the earlier question, is that here they
are working from the inside, and they can say to
the administrations that they serve, here we are,
giving you the opportunity to represent the US
and what it might mean, and perhaps does
mean to the world. And if you don't use
us, rest assured-- like civil rights
activists, SNCC has a certain kind
of internationalism. There have been long-standing-- from the AME church, to
what's left of the Garveyites, to sort of nascent
Black Power which will, in the form of the Panthers
or the Nation of Islam-- there are all of these
Black folks out and about, organized or not, who are doing
internationalist work that will link Americans to
people in the broader world. And so having
insiders in place is a way of being able to set
the message and the agenda, sometimes in concert with
those other activists and sometimes in
competition with them. LEOLA CALZOLAI-STEWART:
I think also what's interesting about the
three characters, too, and just as another distinguishing
factor, is that two of them were political appointees. So you had Edward
R. Dudley and Carl Rowan that were politically
appointed, which in many ways is-- eventually their
time would be up in the State Department, when
the administration changes. But Terence Todman,
when you talk about institutional change,
is a career diplomat, someone who, as you said, had a very
strong sense of self, I think, and what he could
add to diplomacy, and I think really believed
in the mission of diplomacy. And as a result, I
think career diplomats see the value of
staying in institutions, to continue to sort
of chip away at this and continue to try to create
a more inclusive space, and see it as a long-term
dedication and career. And I know Ambassador Brazeal
is also a career diplomat, so she's dedicated her career
to also doing the same. AURELIA BRAZEAL: I think we've
become comfortable with what I call ambiguity. And that is that you could
work on an issue or a policy and not see anything happen
until five years later, because you're really
trying to influence, if you're influencing
a country, you're really influencing people,
and people change very slowly. So you don't just parachute
in and expect something to happen immediately,
although Americans have a very short timeline. But most countries
have a longer timeline. So it's that comfort factor that
you are working on something worthwhile and may
not bloom until later, but you have that optimism
that something will happen, something good. CAMEO GEORGE: And so
I do have questions from the audience rolling in. So please continue to
submit your questions. But before I turn to one
of the audience questions, we're having a conversation
right now about the difference between being a political
appointee and a career diplomat. And I'm just I'm
wondering if Adriane, if you could talk to us a little
bit about how the priorities and ideologies of
different presidents changed the course of our
protagonists' careers? ADRIANE LENTZ-SMITH: Sure. So for all three of the
protagonists in this film, we're in a Cold War that is kind
of coalescing, intensifying, and then with Johnson,
you can say going haywire. And that's the context in
which all of the presidents are making their decision. And so the context in which our
protagonists are maneuvering, right? And there's different things
that each of them can do. In the case of Edward
Dudley, the first, who's not in the snip-- what
will be when you all watch it on the 15th, Dudley-- and I should say all
none of the presidents are like kind of racial
groundbreakers devoid of kind of racist inclinations
or feelings, right? They are men raised
in-- white men raised in the early 20th century
with certain understandings of whiteness and Blackness and
capacity and what have you. But they have different
responses over time to those. So with Truman, he really
sees in the aftermath of a war against fascism,
which embraces white supremacy as part of it, and the
beginning of a Cold War when the legitimacy of American
democracy is on the line, he comes to see baby
steps towards opening up, towards desegregating things,
as being part of the mission. So Dudley is in place precisely
because of Truman's changing ideology and how he thinks it
necessary to fight the Cold War. Eisenhower is actually
far more recalcitrant. He does not want to
push for civil rights to disrupt his prosecution
of the Cold War. And he does not initially
see fighting the Cold War and equal rights for-- not even equal
rights, some rights for African-Americans
as being part of the same struggle, as we
see with the coverage of Little Rock. He sat on that for weeks
before he did anything. And there's a similar kind
of closedness to decolonizing that's reflected. His lack of receptivity
to civil rights is similar to his
lack of receptivity to decolonizing
nations, which means that Todman is moving through
slightly different space. By the time we get
to Rowan and Kennedy, and the ways in
which the US must deal with the sort of pressing
questions that the civil rights movement have made
urgent, in order to have any kind of legitimate
standing in presenting itself to the world as a counter
to the Soviet Union-- like Rowan, Rowan is
differently placed, has tremendous opportunities
because of this urgency, and also knows how to do stuff
within those opportunities. CAMEO GEORGE: OK, I have a
question from the audience. Let's see. How do you deal with the
dilemma of whether to continue or resign when you find
American policy immoral? Perhaps we can talk about
examples from the film. I won't put Ambassador
Brazeal on the spot. Maybe you want to talk
about it in general terms, or tie it to our protagonists
in this particular film? AURELIA BRAZEAL: Well, the
Foreign Service in the State Department has a certain-- at
least when I was in, again, in the 20th and the first
part of the 21st century-- it has a certain
tolerance for dissent. And this came through
the Vietnam War era, when I first came in. In particular,
they realized they had to create a way for
people to internally dissent, and then they would
answer that dissent. So there is a certain
tolerance in the culture for dissent, number one. Number two, I
usually tell people you have to develop your
own personal continuum. And on one side of the continuum
is acquiescence to whatever policy is in place and
not questioning it, and at the other end
might be resignation. And then you find where you are
comfortable on that continuum firstly. Perhaps you disagree
with the policy, and so you decide not to work
in that part of the world where that policy
is being applied. That's one option as
short of resignation. So you have to
sort of personally become comfortable where you
want to be on that continuum and maybe resign. I had colleagues who did
resign over the Vietnam War at the time, after
soon after we had come into the Foreign Service. So I've met people in many
places on that continuum. But back to the optimistic
point of view, too. It's not always either/or. Diplomats look for the "and
also," or part of the equation, and not see things
so much as either/or and you fix your
positions in that way. You have to look for the
"and also" maneuverability to push things in the direction
that you think they should go. LEOLA CALZOLAI-STEWART:
You know, I think in terms of
the film, too, it's as I had mentioned before with
ambassadors Dudley and Rowan, Dudley resigns, but it wasn't
an unexpected resignation. I mean, it was a change
in administration and he knew his time
was coming to an end. But Carl Rowan I
think, while he didn't disagree with the
Vietnam War, he disagreed with
how it was being-- how it was unfolding. He disagreed with
the secretiveness around how it was
being conducted, and eventually I think
becomes a bit disillusioned with the administration
and how it was being run. And so when he
resigns from USIA, I think it really is a
moment of, I don't really want to be a part of
this, right, anymore. And it goes back
into, to journalism. And Terence Todman has a
long career, 40-some years, so for him, he found that-- his spot on that continuum
that Ambassador Brazeal has mentioned. CAMEO GEORGE: That
makes a lot of sense. I have a question
from the audience for Ambassador Brazeal. What do you think the
State Department can do now in the current moment to
build a more just, equitable, and inclusive workforce? AURELIA BRAZEAL:
Well, I think it can do more of what it's
beginning to do now. We have Ambassador Gina
Abercrombie-Winstanley, who is the first chief
diversity and inclusion officer in the State Department. And she and her team I think
are building in the expertise, not only in her office but
in each bureau of people responsible for this, where
she's institutionalizing the annual performance
evaluation to make sure that people, before
they are promoted, have to be rated somehow or
having their write-up done of what they've done for
inclusion, equity, and justice so that there's some meat
being put on the bones. In my experience, you had allies
in the State Department very interested in
increasing diversity, but these were individuals. And you didn't
really get to a point of touching the structure that
was built in that prevented. You were sort of almost going
individual by individual, which can be very frustrating. So now I think the
structure itself is being looked at in a
way that's going to change, and I welcome that. I also think that we
have more diversity in the sense of racial
diversity, gender diversity, educational diversity,
other kinds of diversity. So that we are getting
people, new second-generation immigrants, for example, coming
into the Foreign Service, who are going to offer
their own perspective, and that's exciting. But we still, in my
view, historically must look at the
African-American contribution and increase the numbers
of African-Americans, because after all, that's
one of the founding sins of the country is
the Black/white issue, and that always has to be
addressed in a particular way, in my view. CAMEO GEORGE:
Leola, I'm curious. How has your experience changed
over the course of 20 years, being a Black family in
the diplomatic corps? Have you seen
changes in how you're received when you land
at a different posts, or when you talk
about your experience being a diplomatic family? LEOLA CALZOLAI-STEWART:
Yeah, I mean, I think there's definitely been
change in the last 20 years. You know, I just agree
with Ambassador Brazeal that I think there's still
a lot of work to be done. I think it is nice
and heartening to see, when we go to different posts,
an increased number of people of color, an increased number of
LGBTQ representation, as well, which is great. But as Dr. Krenn
says in the film, I think as this
history has shown, it's been a bit of
an uphill battle. And so there's still quite
a bit of work to be done. And I think with the new office
of diversity, equity inclusion, I think it is pretty
hopeful and signals a change in the
department that I hope will show a shift in how
these issues are addressed, and how conversations are had,
and sparking new conversations on these issues, as well. CAMEO GEORGE: One of the things
that we got to see last week was the dedication of the
cafeteria at the Foreign Service to Terence Todman. Leola, can you talk a little
bit about just how that happens and what that means to
Terence Todman, to his family, and to the African-American
members of the service to this day? LEOLA CALZOLAI-STEWART:
Yeah, it was a great panel. There was a panel of myself
and Terence Todman Jr., Ambassador Todman's
son, Ambassador Abercrombie-Winstanley,
and Miriam Safi, who's with the Office of DEI
at the Department of State. And in the morning, it
was a wonderful panel that celebrated the life
and legacy of Terence Todman and his contributions
to American diplomacy and the State Department. And then later that day,
there was a ceremony at the State
Department's cafeteria that they renamed in honor of
Terence Todman and his efforts to desegregate the
Foreign Service Institute eating facilities. And, you know, I think
in general, it just feels great I
think to be seen, I think for Black diplomats
in the department, this history acknowledged,
history recognized. It was wonderful to see
the secretary of state give comments about this
history and acknowledge it, the contributions
of not just Terence Todman but other diplomats to-- other Black diplomats to
the Department of State. So I think it was
meaningful for his family. His son spoke very
eloquently about his father and his father's career, his
mother and her participation in this diplomatic
endeavor, which I think is also a family
project when you go overseas. So I think it was a
meaningful moment, and I know for someone
like myself and my husband, it was just-- it was nice to
see this history acknowledged and to be seen, I think,
in the Department of State. CAMEO GEORGE: There's
an amazing anecdote in the film about Ambassador
Todman trying to, or advocating for desegregating the
cafeteria, so it's especially resonant and poignant
that this dedication happened this month. And I'd like to think that
your work in putting together this film raised his
profile even further and contributed to
this honor, as well. LEOLA CALZOLAI-STEWART: Yeah. CAMEO GEORGE: Yeah. AURELIA BRAZEAL: I saw-- if I could, I saw comments
from Foreign Service officers after the dedication, and
some people also seeing this film somewhat early, to say
they didn't know this history. And so unfortunately,
it's reflective of this American tendency
to try to deny facts and true American history. So these kinds of stories
have to be told, I think, and have to be told to the
Foreign Service officers who reflect American society,
which doesn't know the stories of African-Americans
and their contribution to this country. CAMEO GEORGE: We only have
a couple of minutes left, and so I'd love to
go down the list and just ask each of you what
you hope that people will take away from learning this
history from this film, but also further
readings that they do. Ambassador, if I
can start with you? AURELIA BRAZEAL:
Well, thank you. I hope that people
who watch the film will think of coming into the
Foreign Service as a career-- all people who watch the
film, because we still need a rainbow representation
of this country-- and that they get excited
about the possibilities of what they can do as an
American diplomat in representing our country. You're not-- as it
was said in the film, it's the good, the
bad, and the ugly. You don't lie about what's
going on in this country, but to me, you use
what's going on as a way to keep the United
States relevant. Because most countries have
similar kinds of problems. Maybe not exactly the
same, but the similarities. So we can talk
about common ground, and so I hope people think
of diplomacy as worthwhile and diplomats as necessary. CAMEO GEORGE: Thank you. Adriane? ADRIANE LENTZ-SMITH: I would-- I would want people to take
away a sense that America is a project, right? Perpetual project,
always ongoing, and that it takes
the work of all of us to make the American state
and the American nation, and our visions of what
mattered and who matters, actually shapes America,
and we should keep working on that, as always. I also want people
to take away a sense that history is
profoundly important, and that there is far
more to know than we know. And I'll put in a
plug, on that note, for the Office of the Historian
at the State Department, which is a wonderful
resource for learning the history of the
State Department but also of American
foreign policy in general. CAMEO GEORGE: Thank you. And Leola Calzolai-Stewart,
our director, I will give you the last word. LEOLA CALZOLAI-STEWART: And just
to quickly pick up on something that Adriane said about the
Office of the Historian, there's also a
wonderful organization based in the DC area, the
Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. They have an oral history
archive of diplomats, and that is a beautiful
thing to dive into and hear from diplomats themselves,
what they've experienced and their histories. I think for me, what I hope
people take away from the film is opening up this
world of diplomacy. I think it is a quiet,
behind-the-scenes type of job that not many people are
aware of, and I want-- and I hope the film opens
that world up to viewers. And I hope young
viewers of color watch this and see that
these were trailblazers that paved a pathway
for us to have a voice in American
diplomacy, that it's not a job for privileged few, that
there's a space there for us, that we can add our voices to
how our country is represented overseas. And here are just
a handful of people that helped create that space. So I hope that it
does inspire a deeper dive into the Foreign Service
in this history for younger viewers. CAMEO GEORGE: Beautifully said. So everyone, thank you
so much for joining us. The American Diplomat
airs next Tuesday, February 15, 9:00 PM Eastern,
8:00 PM Central on PBS, on the PBS video app, or on our
site, AmericanExperience.org. Again, I want to thank
you all for joining us, for watching this excerpt, and
then for staying for the panel. Ambassador Aurelia Brazeal,
Professor Adriane Lentz-Smith, director Leola
Calzolai-Stewart, thank you so much for your time tonight. This was wonderful. Thank you. LEOLA CALZOLAI-STEWART:
Thank you. ADRIANE LENTZ-SMITH:
Thank you, Cameo.
