The Foreign Service Journal, February 2009

preciation of the department for the very satisfactory manner in which you have discharged your duties of the mission at Port-au-Prince during your term of office. This commendation of your services is the more especially merited because at various times your duties have been of such a delicate nature as to have required the exer- cise of much tact and discretion.” When Bassett returned to the United States, he spent a decade in New York City as Haiti’s consul gen- eral. He then returned to Philadel- phia, where his daughter Charlotte taught at the Institute of Colored Youth. He spent the rest of his life there. Unfortunately, unlike his peers who broke the color barrier in other professional fields, Ebenezer Bassett would be forgotten with the passing of time. Yet he was a role model, and not simply for his symbolic importance as the first African-American diplomat. His concern for human rights and courage in the face of threats from Haitians as well as opposition from his own government place him in the an- nals of great American diplomats. For those of us in the current For- eign Service, his leadership helped es- tablish the great tradition in which we now work, and his name is one we all should know. F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 9 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 35 Ebenezer Bassett paved the way for Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice to serve as Secretaries of State.