All language subtitles for American.Experience.S34E02.The.American.Diplomat.720p.PBS.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-AmEx

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In the fall of 1948,

a young African American lawyer
and his wife

crossed an ocean
to begin a new job.

Edward R. Dudley had just been
named the United States Minister

to the West African nation
of Liberia.

As the boat docked
on that very bright morning,

two of us were standing
at the rail,

we saw thousands of people.

It was rather
an exhilarating experience.

♪ ♪

We could see the new frontiers
opening up.

It was a time of titanic
struggles

between competing ideologies:

communism versus capitalism;

white supremacy

versus Black liberation;

colonialism

versus self-rule.

A racially segregated
United States

was positioning itself
as the leader

of a mostly non-white world.

It's difficult for us

to fully conceptualize what
it meant to be Black

in spaces of government during
that time period.

Then to have to represent
U.S. interests

and help cultivate the narrative

of U.S. democracy
for non-U.S. publics.

In the decades to come,
three Black diplomats...

Edward R. Dudley,
Terence Todman, and Carl Rowan...

would challenge the foundations
of American diplomacy

and try to change the way

America represented itself
to the world.

Sure, we're going to be
criticized.

It's because we're talking
about the things

that the United States
stands for,

the things that the
United States seeks to be.

They would challenge not only

the State Department,

but U.S. foreign policy itself.

Washington got accustomed

to my taking strong
independent stands

because the United States had a
revolution for our independence,

and we should be supportive
of independence.

These three diplomats

would also challenge
an unequal system

that had long determined

who should represent
America overseas.

If one was an ambassador,

there was a feeling that

this man was a true
representative of a country.

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.

♪ ♪

On March 12, 1947,

President Harry S. Truman
articulated a policy

that would come to be known
as the Truman Doctrine.

♪ ♪

At the present moment

in world history,
nearly every nation must choose

between alternative
ways of life.

If we falter in our leadership,

we may endanger
the peace of the world,

and we shall surely endanger
the welfare of this nation.

This was the cornerstone
of American foreign policy

in the Cold War
with the Soviet Union,

the idea that undemocratic
regimes anywhere

were a threat to freedom
everywhere.

Truman promised
that the United States

would do everything in its power
to stop the spread of communism

in any nation in the world.

Already an iron curtain had
dropped around Poland, Hungary,

Yugoslavia, Bulgaria...
Menace to the security

and institutions
of democratic government.

This truly a war of ideas.

The post-war world

was now a chessboard in
a high-stakes match between

democracy and communism.

The United States

and the Soviet Union battled

to win the hearts and minds

of neutral nations

all over the globe.

In nations that are becoming

independent, how do they

maneuver in a world in which

the U.S. and the
Soviet Union have demanded

that people choose sides?

At the heart of the Cold War
were struggles over narrative.

♪ ♪

The Achilles heel for the
United States is its history

of racialized violence,

oppression,
and injustice against

people of color in the United
States and elsewhere.

How the United States treated

its own citizens mattered
diplomatically

in a way that it hadn't before.

♪ ♪

Black veterans were coming back

from the Second World War,
and they were demanding

the democracy that they
had fought so hard for.

There were a series of horrific
lynchings in 1946.

♪ ♪

and Truman is just absolutely
horrified.

Truman understood that

if the U.S. wanted the world
to believe them

when they said that they were
offering a democracy

that would benefit all,
then they needed to show

that they could offer that
democracy at home.

In 1948, President Truman

made a bold step:

he issued executive orders
to desegregate the military

and the civil service.

With a tough re-election
looming,

he looked to strengthen his ties

to the African American
community.

When the post of Minister
to Liberia became available,

Truman's team asked
Walter White,

the head of the N.A.A.C.P.,

the nation's most influential
civil rights organization,

to recommend a candidate.

White suggested a sharp
N.A.A.C.P. lawyer,

Edward R. Dudley.

At 37, Edward Dudley of
Roanoke, Virginia,

had already had
a storied career.

♪ ♪

I was 23 years old.

I came to New York, bright,
fresh, full of vinegar.

I applied for a job as
an assistant stage manager

at the Lafayette Theater
in Harlem.

Orson Welles came to work
with us

and directed a Haitian Macbeth.

Lay on, Macduff!

And damn'd be he who first
cries, "Hold, enough!"

I saw no real future
in New York theaters.

Stagehands were not permitted

to work below 125th Street.

♪ ♪

So I decided to go to
law school.

In 1943, Thurgood Marshall,

the head of the N.A.A.C.P.'s
Legal Defense Fund,

hired Dudley to assist
with his strategy

of dismantling inequality
one case at a time.

For five years,

the two men crossed the country,

filing, and winning,
anti-discrimination lawsuits.

But now, President Truman was
asking Edward Dudley

to be the face of America
in Liberia.

♪ ♪

In Liberia,

the staff at the legation
welcomed us.

Shortly thereafter,

we engaged in the task
of diplomacy.

We get in touch

with the other members
of the diplomatic corps.

There's a parade,
view the troops.

This is big diggins in
small countries.

And all of a sudden,

you're catapulted
into this kind of thing.

And then you do the best
you can.

EDWARD DUDLEY, JR.:
My father was a risk taker.

I was six when I first joined
them

in Liberia.

My mother did most
of the raising.

My father was
the disciplinarian.

He was a very confident man.

♪ ♪

Like all political appointees,

Dudley served at the
pleasure of the president.

With the 1948 presidential
election

only a few months away

and Truman trailing badly
in the polls,

Dudley believed his time in
Liberia would be short-lived.

And we woke up and Harry Truman
was the president.

Rather than stay a few months
in Africa, we stayed five years.

Dudley's staff included

a small community of
African American diplomats.

Some had been in Liberia
for years,

and experienced more freedom
there than they could have

in the segregated United States.

♪ ♪

They shared a commitment

to institution-building and
felt pride in the knowledge

that they were a part of
a pivotal moment in history

in a rapidly changing Africa.

A vital American ally
in World War II,

Liberia had provided
critical rubber supplies

and the site
for a military base.

But now, American attention

had shifted toward

African countries on the brink
of independence...

nations whose loyalties

in the Cold War hung
in the balance.

Dudley faced a delicate task.

President Tubman felt

Liberia was being neglected
and is not getting

the kind of foreign assistance
that it deserved.

So Dudley's representing
the United States

when that traditional
relationship

is beginning to shift.

To underscore Liberia's
importance as an ally,

the United States elevated
the status

of the American Legation

to an Embassy... a shift
that made Dudley a pioneer

for Black diplomats.

I became the first ambassador

of color from the United States.

♪ ♪

Ambassador, being the highest
diplomatic rank in Liberia,

this mantle fell upon
my shoulders.

When he was raised
to the ambassadorial level,

he was not simply going
to push papers

and have photo ops,
he wanted to do things

in Liberia.

♪ ♪

There was heavy U.S. investment
in the country.

Firestone and other American
companies that were there

considered themselves
almost as invaders

that conquered pieces of land

and used them as they wished.

Ambassador Dudley's task
was to balance

American interests

with Liberian progress.

The key was an initiative
called Point Four.

Dr. Kwame Nkrumah,

Prime Minister of the Gold
Coast, arrives in Liberia.

A portion of his visit
is spent surveying

Point Four activity in Liberia.

♪ ♪

Point Four was President
Truman's ambitious

international aid program.

It sent American expertise,

money, and supplies

to developing nations,

demonstrating the
considerable benefits

of being an American ally.

♪ ♪

DUDLEY, JR.:
My father dove into this.

We're going to help them
with bridges,

with roads, with health,
education.

My father could see

the results
and to see the change.

♪ ♪

The significance of
Edward Dudley

being the first
African American ambassador

is huge.

It is part of the struggle
of the recognition of merit.

It had taken the United States
160 years.

The State Department
was created in 1789.

Its diplomats,
appointed by presidents,

had always been the face
of America in foreign lands.

Yet the State Department
had a very limited vision

of who should represent America
to the world.

During Reconstruction, there
were a few African Americans

appointed as diplomats.

In 1869, Ebenezer Bassett

was the first
African American diplomat.

He was sent as
a minister to Haiti.

Frederick Douglass was appointed
to that same position.

So there were opportunities,

but they were very,
very small opportunities.

The State Department had
the well-deserved reputation

of being extremely elitist.

It was the bailiwick
of Boston Brahmins.

Pale, male, and Yale.

♪ ♪

After World War I,

Congress attempted
to professionalize

the diplomatic corps.

The Rogers Act, 1924,

set up the Foreign Service exam
that had to be taken

by every candidate.

It was supposed to set up
a merit-based system.

The legislation seemed to be

a revolution in the making.

In theory, anyone who passed
the rigorous test

could join the Foreign Service.

And in 1925, a law clerk named
Clifton Wharton

easily passed the written exam.

So there was this wide
assumption that he was white.

And then he came for
the oral part of his exam,

and was very hastily
sent off to Liberia.

They didn't even send him

to the Foreign Service school
for training.

♪ ♪

Only four more African Americans
were accepted

into the diplomatic corps
over the next 25 years.

The chairman of Foreign Service
personnel, Joseph Grew,

stated very clearly that
African Americans, women,

Jewish Americans
would be quietly,

but effectively, excluded.

Even if they passed through
the written exam,

they would be shuffled away
through the oral examination.

As Foreign Service Officers,

you are sample Americans,

and many people abroad

will think better or worse,

of the United States because

of what you do.

♪ ♪

I used to come back to
Washington,

in a circle with nothing
but white people,

and I'd be introduced as

ambassador to Liberia.

And none of them would ever
hear that

because they would turn to me
and ask me,

"How do you like our country?"
talking about America.

The fact of the matter was,
they could never conceive that

a Black man could ever be
an ambassador.

♪ ♪

Dudley's sense of doing good
work in Liberia

was soon tempered by the reality
for African American diplomats.

He realized they were stuck
in an international loop

that was limiting
their professional growth

and their ability to advance.

In Liberia, the Black Foreign
Service Officers

had never had the opportunity
of serving anywhere else

in the world,
despite the fact that

it was a State Department policy

to rotate officers
every two years,

none had ever gotten outside
of a little triumvirate

called Monrovia,

Ponta Delgado,

and Madagascar.

And this had been going on
for year

after year, after year.

The State Department had

what they called the
Negro Circuit.

They put them in places where
there were already Black people.

And Dudley looked at a system
that had been in place

for decades and said, "No."

♪ ♪

We put together a memorandum
documenting

every Black
in the Foreign Service

over a long period of years.

♪ ♪

When they came into the service,

how long they had been in,

and the fact that they
had never been transferred.

We added a class of white
Foreign Service Officers.

In every instance,

they had had four, five,
and six transfers,

and had been in different posts

throughout the world.

♪ ♪

You had these
Foreign Service Officers...

well-trained, highly educated...

Being placed simply
in the Negro Circuit.

It makes it really hard

to do the work of America when
you know that you have been

Jim Crowed by your
own government.

♪ ♪

The former lawyer quickly saw
that the Negro Circuit

directly violated the
Foreign Service Act of 1946.

It was a law whose central
purpose

was to make the Foreign Service

stronger and more efficient.

But with Truman pushing
for desegregation,

the Act also stated a goal of

"eliminating conditions
favorable

to inbred prejudice
and caste spirit."

My entire background had been
with the National Association

for the Advancement
of Colored People.

And I knew exactly what to do.

I asked for an audience with
the Undersecretary of State,

John Peurifoy, and sat in
his office while he read it.

And he was visibly disturbed,

and asked me what I was going
to do with it.

I indicated that
it was his responsibility

to correct
an unwholesome situation,

but in my judgment,
an illegal situation.

Within six months,
transfers came through

and the number one
Foreign Service Officer

was sent to Paris, France.

And this is the first time that
a Black Foreign Service Officer

had ever served in Europe.

A second Foreign Service Officer
was sent to Zurich, Switzerland.

And a young lady of great talent
was sent to Rome, Italy.

In 1952, Dwight D. Eisenhower
was elected president.

Eisenhower was a war hero,
not a career politician.

Raised in Kansas,
he came from a world

where segregation
was the law of the land.

His State Department

is hostile, certainly,
to decolonizing nations

and uninterested in any kind
of meaningful

African American
diplomatic service.

♪ ♪

Eisenhower's election
meant Dudley's time

as ambassador was over.

Before the new administration
took office,

Dudley officially documented
his strong objection

to maintaining the status quo

in his resignation letter.

He argued,
"Black Foreign Service Officers

must have equal opportunity
for assignments worldwide."

The Negro Circuit had to end.

He made a Cold War argument

that I'm not asking you just
as a moral imperative.

You've got to do good

for these three-quarters
of the world's people

who are looking at America
to see whether

it will live up to its promise
of democracy and freedom.

And here's a way to do it.

In 1953,

Dudley left
the State Department,

returning to the N.A.A.C.P.

and the wider struggle
for Civil Rights in America.

♪ ♪

In the early 1950s,

the United States rode a wave
of prosperity.

But while the country was locked

into a brutal war in Korea,

the nation also agonized

over the Soviet threat
of nuclear devastation,

and a growing fear of communism

within America.

Holidays,

vacation time, we must be ready

to do the right thing

if the atomic bomb explodes.

Duck and cover!

Senator Joseph McCarthy
of Wisconsin

sensationally claimed

that hundreds of communist spies
had infiltrated

the State Department.

Plans have been discussed

by the Soviet secret police
to obtain blank

American passports
from communists

employed in the
State Department.

American government agencies

and showboating Congressmen

falsely linked civil rights
organizations with communism.

For aspiring Black diplomats,

this created yet another barrier

to a career in
the State Department.

Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles

said none of these Negroes
can get through with

"lily white" clearance.

Think about what that
is really saying.

It's saying that

Black folks can't be trusted
with American democracy.

So we can't have them in our
mainline bureaucracies

doing the work of America.

♪ ♪

One ambitious young man refused
to be deterred.

In 1952, a 26-year-old
from the U.S. Virgin Islands

named Terence Todman passed a
written federal service exam,

and was offered a job
at the State Department.

But then he arrived

for his first day of work.

The head of personnel said that

we note your accent isn't
a hundred percent American,

and we can't afford to have
anyone

in the Foreign Service who isn't

immediately identifiable as
American.

The accent wasn't
the defining reason.

That was the expressed reason.

The real reason is you...

you're Black.

You are not really
fully American.

But Todman persisted.

He argued his case up the ladder
to the head of the office.

Ambassador Whitman said,
there's a great deal

of work to be done
in this office.

We cannot afford to hire
a "showpiece."

I said, "Sir, if your job was
a showpiece, I wouldn't want it.

I think too highly of myself
to take a job like that."

And he said,
"Okay, we'll take you on."

♪ ♪

Terence was born in St. Thomas,
Virgin Islands.

Race was not an issue.

Just being raised
in the Virgin Islands,

it sort of gave you a sense
of who you are.

♪ ♪

He grew up very poor.

We were in the same class.

He's quite bossy, by the way.

He was very, very smart.

I remember my great-grandmother
saying,

"That young man, whoever he is,
is going places."

In 1945, at age 19,

Todman had been drafted

into the Army.

He took the officer's candidate
exam in Spanish and English,

and passed both.

Then he was shipped out
to Japan,

where he discovered his calling.

I learned to speak Japanese,

and I spoke to my fellow
officers

and heard the misconceptions

they had about the Japanese.

And I would tell them
what the Japanese were like.

And speaking to the Japanese,

the misconceptions
they had about Americans

were so great,
that I found myself

telling the Japanese

about Americans.

And I realized that a lot of
difficulties arose

from people not knowing
about each other.

And that became critical
to my thinking

about what I would do
afterwards.

This was the eye-opening
experience

that propelled his interests
into Foreign Service.

If he could be as successful

as a communicator
in the military,

why not seek an opportunity

to apply those
skills as a diplomat?

♪ ♪

Terence Todman began
as a Foreign Service

desk officer in Washington D.C.,

monitoring U.S. relations
with three Asian nations.

From the beginning,
his colleagues didn't know

what to make of his presence.

When they came to speak
to the Nepal desk officer,

they'd walk in,
see me behind a desk,

and wonder,
what are you doing there?

There'd be real amazement,
just to the idea

of an African American
in an officer position.

Being a diplomatic wife
was a full-time job.

There was so much work
dealing with three countries,

India, Ceylon, and Nepal.

He'd bring the newspapers
home for me to read.

I would underline

what was important

and give him a briefing.

I was a part of it.

Todman's first overseas
assignment was India.

But first, he had
to take language training

in Hindustani at the
Foreign Service Institute.

This was Virginia in 1957,

where segregation was legal.

My first day, the white officers

went across the street
into a restaurant.

And I was not allowed
to go there because

Black Americans couldn't
go into their restaurants.

So I went to the
State Department and said,

"This can't go."

State Department said,
"These are Virginia laws,

"a lot of people have come here

and haven't said
anything about it."

And I said, "Well,
I'm not other people,

and you're doing
something that's not right."

And he said to the Department
of State, "You have a problem.

"I don't have a problem.

This is not about me."

♪ ♪

Todman later said,

"I was considered
a troublemaker,

and that was all right."

Todman knew that
institutional culture

wasn't going
to change on its own.

It was going to change
by being confronted,

by being embarrassed.

And he kept up such
a firestorm of protest

that eventually
the Department of State

rented half of the restaurant.

There finally was a
desegregated cafeteria

for Foreign Service Officers.

While Terence Todman
was confronting racism

inside the State Department,

the U.S. government
was confronting

a Soviet information campaign
focused on highlighting

America's racial violence.

A large part of the Cold War

was a battle
of public relations.

Which side would be
better at selling itself?

To counter Soviet
propaganda worldwide,

Eisenhower created the United
States Information Agency,

the U.S.I.A.

As a one-stop shop for American
foreign policy information,

U.S.I.A. has an astonishing
range of outlets.

It had Voice of America radio.

It had libraries.

It gets U.S.I.A. material in
front of millions of people

and is a tremendous part of how

the United States

is perceived in the world.

The crucial audiences
for the American message

were countries that hadn't
taken sides in the Cold War,

the non-aligned nations.

Terence Todman was sent
to the most important

neutral nation of all... India.

India had been one
of the countries

most critical of the
United States' race relations.

It was a country that was
independent of the Soviets.

It was a very
influential country.

Indian opinion was important.

As the Todman
family looked to India

for their first
overseas posting,

the eyes of the world
were focused

on Little Rock, Arkansas.

♪ ♪

One of the interesting aspects

of the Civil Rights
controversies

of the late '50s was

they were televised.

Little Rock, Arkansas.

The white population are
determined to prevent

colored students from
going to the school

their own children attend.

This was one of the first times

in U.S. history
when racial violence

could be seen all
over the world.

You've got nine
Black honor students,

just trying to go to school,

just trying to get an education.

We see white mobs, angry mobs,

trying to get at the kids.

The "Times of India"
tracked it day by day.

Race was undermining the ability

of the United States to appeal
to emerging new nations.

And it raised questions...

"Why should we be your ally when

you treat people who
look like me this way?"

The governor of Arkansas
sent in the National Guard

to block the Black students
and keep the school segregated.

For three weeks, the president

of the United States
did nothing at all.

The Soviets were all on top

of the explosion at Little Rock.

You see the frustration
in the administration,

in the State Department,
calling it propaganda.

It is a way for them
to strip it of its truth.

It's not propaganda
if it's true.

Our enemies are gloating
over this incident

and using it everywhere to
misrepresent our whole nation.

Little Rock will return

to its normal habits
of peace and order.

Thus will be restored

the image of America
and of all its parts.

Eisenhower deploys
federal troops.

He ultimately does it
for these questions

of American credibility
in international coverage,

not because it's
the right thing to do.

As America continued to
reveal its faults to the world,

it was a frustrating time
for Terence Todman

to be a Foreign Service
Officer abroad.

"We were putting out
a lot of information,

which no one paid
any attention to,"

he would later say.

"If we assigned a couple
of Black officers

"to positions
in those embassies,

"their very presence,
as Black Americans

in official positions, would
tell the story far better."

And for Doris Todman,

it was difficult to be overseas

watching the Civil Rights
struggle unfold

half a world away.

Well, I would say,
"Why am I here?

I should be out there
marching," you know.

And he said, "Look,
we serve a purpose, too.

We're showing what
America could be."

He was concerned that
we represent the truth

and not painting over of
American culture and society.

He had a job to do,

to represent the
United States of America,

the good, the bad, and the ugly.

And if it was ugly,
he said it's ugly.

By the late 1950s,

people throughout
Asia and Africa

were fighting for
self-determination

against colonial powers.

But Eisenhower failed
to see a connection between

liberation movements in Africa

and civil rights in America.

He saw action against
colonial governments

as communist-inspired.

Deeply embedded in U.S. values

in the 1950s was
an understanding of

white people at the
top of a heap of worth

and capability, and

Black people, Asians, you know,
Indigenous people

controlling their own destinies,

would mean chaos and upheaval,

is deeply rooted in
racialized understandings

of who has the capacity
for self-government.

While serving
on U.S. delegations,

I noticed the
United States going along

with what the British
and French were doing

in dragging their feet
and not keeping up to

their sacred trust of bringing

these countries
to self-government.

And I kept insisting
that the U.S. policy

should be in keeping
with our own history

and our own principles,

and that we should
not be going along

with what these colonial
powers were doing.

Todman represented

the sort of young lions
coming in,

confronting this idea within
the State Department

that the real experts on Africa
are the old colonialists.

♪ ♪

In 1960, liberation
movements in Asia and Africa

were transforming
global politics.

That year alone,

17 African nations won

their struggle for independence.

Eisenhower left office in 1961,
just as the movement

for civil rights at home was
growing stronger by the year.

In his winning campaign,

John F. Kennedy
had promised to support

both civil rights
and African independence.

The great battleground
for the defense and expansion

of freedom today is the whole
southern half of the globe...

Asia, Latin America,

Africa, and the Middle East,

the lands of the rising people.

But for all his rhetoric,

the new president

mainly focused on one problem...
Stopping the expansion

of communist power.

Now he looked for
someone he could trust

to communicate his
policies to the world.

Oh, New Year's Day of 1961,

I was lying in bed
in Pasadena waiting

for the Rose Bowl game to start,

when I got a telephone call
asking if I'd come down

to Washington as Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State.

Wow, that must've
been an exciting call.

Well, it, uh... there
were a lot of days

during those
four-and-a-half years

when I wished I'd
never gotten the call.

By the time he
received that call,

Carl Rowan was already a
nationally known journalist.

During the 1960 campaign,

he'd written
a series of articles for

a Republican-owned newspaper

on Democratic candidate John
F. Kennedy that Kennedy found

surprisingly fair.

Six months later,
the new president offered

the young journalist the job
of Deputy Assistant

Secretary of State
for Public Affairs.

Carl Rowan would communicate
Kennedy's policies

to journalists around the world.

He wanted his voice to be heard.

He wanted a seat at the table

in both domestic

and international policy making.

♪ ♪

The appointment made
Rowan the highest-ranking

African American official
in the State Department.

It was a remarkable
accomplishment,

especially for someone
who'd grown up in a family

of five in a small house
with no electricity

in McMinnville, Tennessee.

His mother was
a cleaner for houses

and his dad really didn't
bring in a consistent income.

That led to squabbles
between his parents.

Those were very
difficult times for him.

From the beginning,

Carl Rowan
was driven to succeed.

He was valedictorian
of his high school class,

and went to Tennessee
State University.

Then he became one of the first
African American officers

in the history of the U.S. Navy.

But when he came back
home to Tennessee,

he was still a
second class citizen.

♪ ♪

He decided to
become a journalist.

He would tell the ugly truth
about racism in the South.

In 1948, I got a job with

the "Minneapolis Tribune"

at a time when very few
daily newspapers

were hiring Negroes as writers.

In 1951,

I suggested to the editors

that we had a responsibility
to tell the people

of this state something about

the Negro citizens
of this nation.

The 18-part series called

"How Far From Slavery?"
was a sensation,

and made Rowan's career.

Rowan portrayed the racial
problems in a very specific way.

That really all we're talking
about are a few Southern states,

these holdouts, who
don't really agree with

the vast majority of Americans.

He had a viewpoint that

working class people,
when given opportunity,

can participate

in ideals
of American citizenship.

♪ ♪

In 1954, Rowan took his idea

of the American dream
overseas to India,

as part of a lecture series

sponsored by the State
Department.

Part of the agenda
is for him to represent

someone who has
been able to uproot themselves

from abject poverty.

He's there to represent
possibilities

of life in the United States.

It perpetuates the kind
of dominant U.S. ethos

of individualism,
which completely negates

the reality that
Rowan was an anomaly.

One evening, an Indian
journalist introduced Rowan

as an "excellent
propagandist for America,"

saying, "We are all
interested in how a man

"with a Black skin,
who has been unable to know

freedom, can talk so learnedly
about a free society."

It was an uncomfortable moment,

and it reconstructed
Rowan's view of the world.

Rowan believed that these
attacks were communist inspired.

That's what he was facing...

misconceptions, lies,
distorted stories.

"I was not a State
Department lackey,"

Rowan would later write.

"I simply went from Darjeeling,
to Patna, to Cuttack,

"to Madras, saying good
things about my country

"because I believed that
the society that had given me

"a break was in
the process of taking

great strides toward
racial justice."

The first word for
him is "patriot."

And that's a
complicated thing for

a Black man to be
in the mid-1950s.

So he is critical of the U.S.,

but he also sees promise,

he believes that
American democracy

would be good for the world,

and for decolonizing nations.

♪ ♪

Rowan became friendly

with Vice President
Lyndon Johnson on a 1961 trip

through Asia, including Vietnam,

where the U.S.

was already
becoming entangled in a war.

♪ ♪

Their friendship
fueled Rowan's ambition,

but it led to frustration,
as well.

"I suppose it's natural that

"anyone who travels with
and advises a vice president

would develop some sense
of self-esteem," he later wrote.

"I took on a sense
of self-importance that

"had nothing to do with reality.

I forgot," he wrote,

"that I was just another Negro."

He describes
the State Department

as a virtual plantation.

It's very much a kind
of white male culture.

And this is a space that he
is forced to make sense of.

He does push for more,
you know, people of color,

Black people, to be hired.

The fact that I'd come in

as the first deputy assistant
secretary,

we launched a mighty campaign

to integrate the
Foreign Service to the point

that it looked reasonably like

the population
of the United States.

But the pace of change was slow.

After two years,

Rowan was ready
to leave the department.

Instead, Kennedy offered
him an ambassadorship

to Finland, and Rowan took it.

The currency of
diplomacy is optimism.

You have to be optimistic
as a diplomat.

And that leads to seeing
issues as opportunities.

♪ ♪

And now you're here and
we hope that you will

like to stay here with us.

I know we're going
to enjoy it immensely.

And we look forward
to seeing all of this

country and as many of
Finland's people as possible.

The Finns did
magazine articles galore.

I remember one in one of
the big Finnish magazines,

the most colorful ambassador
in Finland.

They were talking
about the unorthodox style

that I brought to the job,
in the sense of traveling

more than any
American had before,

and going out bowling
with the Finnish people.

♪ ♪

People would walk up
to us and stare,

but it wasn't a kind
of racist staring.

They were just curious
because they had never

really seen people
of color before.

♪ ♪

For Rowan,
being a Black ambassador

in Finland had a subtext.

He wrote,
"I could belie the notion

that my country was
hopelessly racist."

Rowan said,
"My coming to Finland would

"hasten the day when
American Negroes are

playing the role they ought to
play in our Foreign Service."

Finland was a
critical country for

a president preoccupied with

drawing the line
against Communism.

The Soviet Union loomed
large on Finland's border.

Ambassador Rowan was now

on the frontlines
of the Cold War.

Finland was a hotspot.

Finland was seen
as sort of a nation

on the fence in the Cold War.

This was a nation we really
had to curry their favor.

We know the Soviets were also
trying to curry their favor.

The U.S. and the
Soviet Union had enough

nuclear weapons to destroy
the other many times over.

Kennedy urged the
world's leaders to sign

a partial test ban,
and Kennedy's

directive to Rowan was clear...

persuade Finland's president,
Urho Kekkonen,

to support an
international treaty.

Let us call a truce to terror.

The logical place
to begin is a treaty

assuring the end
of nuclear tests

of all kinds,
in every environment.

♪ ♪

Rowan succeeded in getting
Kekkonen to join the effort.

This was his greatest
accomplishment as an ambassador.

But his stay was cut short...

on November 22, 1963.

In winter's darkness,

all men await the new
president's guidance.

His cabinet puts before him a
Congress deadlocked in debate,

the torment of a nation
on the edge of racial clash.

With steadying certainty,
Lyndon Johnson takes over.

When Lyndon Johnson
became president,

he entered office with an
ambitious civil rights agenda.

The first step
would be to appoint

African Americans
to high office.

I, Carl T. Rowan,
do solemnly swear...

He named Rowan the director

of the United States
Information Agency.

That I will support...

The fact that here is

a very accomplished
African American

who has
been put into this position

and has the confidence

of the president
of the United States,

it was a major fanfare

as I was growing up

in African American
publications,

because it was unprecedented.

But it wasn't easy to be head
of the U.S.I.A. in the 1960s.

America's racial
unrest intensified,

while the country
spiraled deeper into

what many viewed
as an unjust war.

It was Rowan's job to protect
America's image overseas,

a position that
often put him at odds

with civil rights leaders.

Carl Rowan,

I would say, played it
too close to the vest.

There is an insurgency
in the Black community.

And so the kind of quiet,
patient gradualism

isn't playing
to that insurgency.

♪ ♪

It was a difficult time to be
a representative of a country

that still kept most of your
fellow African Americans

in second-class citizenship.

Well, which United States
do they represent?

Do they represent
the United States that

they are supposed to represent,

as the paragon of freedom,
democracy, and justice,

or do they represent
the America which is

a segregated, divided,

and sometimes racially
violent society?

As the debacle
in Vietnam consumed LBJ,

Rowan felt increasingly cut out

of the decision-making process.

His relationship with
the president deteriorated.

In 1965, Rowan resigned.

There were people
I knew who did resign.

As a country,
we lost their talent.

We lost their thinking
on policy issues.

It's hard to quantify
what you've lost,

but you do lose that
voice at the table.

It's easy to
enter an institution

and think you're
going to change it.

But if it's just you
or just a few of you,

how do you keep in mind the
purpose that you entered with

and how do you
fulfill that purpose?

Both Carl Rowan

and Edward R. Dudley returned

to illustrious
careers outside diplomacy.

But Terence Todman dedicated
his life to the Foreign Service.

In 1989, the State
Department honored him

with the rank of
Career Ambassador,

the first African
American diplomat

to receive that distinction.

He served as an
ambassador for 23 years,

learned six languages,

and held six
ambassadorial positions.

That means that
on six occasions,

Ambassador Todman
received Senate confirmation.

On six occasions,
you had the confidence

of the president
of the United States.

That is... that is highly unique.

♪ ♪

We felt we were proving a point

because we had penetrated

an impenetrable area

in America, in diplomacy.

We felt that was important.

If we look at the late
1940s with Edward Dudley,

moving on through
Terence Todman,

moving up to the career
of Carl Rowan and beyond,

the question of progress,
it's a difficult one.

Has there been progress?

There has been progress.

But it's been an uphill battle.

The folks who are
in these bureaucracies,

which are often
very hostile places,

slowly chipping away

at the structures of inequality,

the structures
that suppress merit,

that just see your Blackness

and not your brilliance,

to have those folks
quietly doing that work,

this is that kind of

institutional systemic work
that creates change.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Next time,
she shot to stardom...

She never missed.

And became an American icon.

There's never been anybody
like Annie Oakley.

This sweet person,
but with this big-bang gun.

But at the height of
her popularity,

scandal threatened
to bring her down.

"Annie Oakley," next time
on "American Experience."

Made possible in part
by Liberty Mutual Insurance.

"American Experience:
The American Diplomat"

is available with PBS Passport
and on Amazon Prime Video.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪