Showing 11–20 of 30 results
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Cuban medical professional and human rights activist Óscar Elías Biscet wrote this letter to U.S. President Barack Obama in 2009 while serving a 25 year prison sentence for his public support of human rights in Cuba. It is written on a cloth handkerchief. Biscet was released in 2011 after appeals from the…
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While serving as U.S. Ambassador to Suriname from 1993-1996, Ambassador Roger Gamble successfully advocated for creating and funding a Peace Corps program in the country. The first Peace Corps volunteers arrived in 1995 and made these t-shirts to commemorate their status as "First in Suriname".
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Avraham (“Rami”) Rabby was a disability rights advocate and a Foreign Service Officer who served from 1990 to 2017. He was completely blind, having lost his sight at age eight due to detached retinas. Rabby fought the Department of State for several years over his ability to join the U.S. Foreign Service.…
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Tom Gallagher joined the Foreign Service in 1965. Ten years later, he came out as openly gay while speaking at a conference on gays in the federal government in Washington, DC. It is believed that he is the first FSO to do so. Before the next periodic renewal of his security clearance,…
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This sign is from a Black Lives Matter protest in Kingston, Jamaica in the summer of 2020 which took place outside the U.S. embassy building. It represents the spirit of protest that reached around the world at that time, and also serves as a tangible example of U.S. embassies’ role as sites…
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In 1948, President Harry S. Truman sent Edward R. Dudley to Liberia as U.S. Envoy and Minister. Upon elevation of the Mission in Liberia to a full U.S. Embassy in 1949, Dudley was promoted to the rank of Ambassador. With that, Ambassador Dudley became the first black Ambassador in U.S. history. Issued…
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Patti Morton was a trailblazer for women’s rights at the U.S. Department of State. In 1972, Morton became the first woman Diplomatic Security Special Agent. One of her other trailblazing roles was as a regional security officer in Saigon, South Vietnam in 1974 where she managed the Marines who guarded the embassy.…
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“Miscellaneous Records Book” kept by the U.S. Embassy in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). A May 1961 entry records the arrival of incoming Ambassador Frances E. Willis, who was the first woman Foreign Service Officer to rise through the ranks to become an ambassador.
Story of Diplomacy
Diplomacy skills are not just any skills. They are the specific skills diplomats employ to succeed in their duties. To help the public demystify the…
Story of Diplomacy
When the Civil War erupted in April of 1861, President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward’s official reason for the war was to…
