 Hello and welcome to this special Facebook Live episode of The Peace Frequency, a podcast series tapping into the stories of people across the globe who are making peace possible and finding ways to create a world without violence. I'm your host, Darren Cambridge, and on today's episode we are broadcasting from the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. And the timing of this episode bridges two months of particular significance and importance. February was African American History Month, and March is Women's History Month, and on today's episode we are going to explore the role and influence of African American men and women on the field of international peace and conflict resolution, roles that have for too long been marginalized or underrepresented. And we have two phenomenal outstanding guests who are going to join us to unpack the following questions. So as all of you watching on Facebook and our small studio audience in the room here, these are a couple of questions that we want you to think about as we have this conversation. First of all, how have black men and women shaped and influenced the fields of conflict resolution and peace building? Who are the individuals from history and from today that are making significant impacts on how we prevent violent conflict and how we build peace? And then last, what can their stories teach us about bringing more African American men and women into the fields of peace and conflict resolution? So again, we have two outstanding guests. First, we have Ambassador Edward Perkins. Ambassador Perkins was the first African American ambassador to South Africa from the years 1986 to 1989. He also served as ambassador to Liberia, Australia, and the United Nations. He was also the director general of the Foreign Service. So Ambassador Perkins, it's an honor to have you with us today. Glad to be with you. We're also joined by Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield. From 2008 to 2012, she was ambassador to Liberia. She also served as the director general of the Foreign Service from 2012 to 2013. And her most recent position in government was as assistant secretary of state for African affairs. And she is currently Distinguished Resident Fellow of African Studies at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. So Ambassador Thomas Greenfield, thank you for being with us. Thank you. I'm delighted to be here. So we start all of our conversations on the podcast with behind the bio question. And it's a question that in your response will hopefully reveal something about your inspirations, your motivations, your character. Also something that people wouldn't learn about you looking at bios that they find of you online on Wikipedia and the respective organizations that you worked for. And one thing that I discovered as I was learning about you prior to this episode is that not only were both of you ambassadors to Liberia, both of you were the director general of the Foreign Service, but you both were born and raised in the great state of Louisiana. So my behind the bio question to both of you is, I want you to think about your roots in Louisiana. And if you could share with us what aspect of those roots do you still feel connected to today? Ambassador Perkins, why don't we start with you? I think I would start with understanding what a sense of community means. I spent the first seven or eight years on a farm owned by my grandparents in northern Louisiana. And since I was the youngest person in the family, I did a lot of work that I wasn't prepared to do, at least emotionally I wasn't prepared to do it. Things like owing, things like peanuts and corn and potatoes, alfalfa. It was a never ending place of work. However, I worked with my grandmother. She worked with me. She had about 10 children. And all of them at one time or another spent some time at a small college in Louisiana. She insisted they all get an education. And that was not necessarily successful for her. They all, many of them wanted to go their own way, including my mother, who left that little college and found herself a preacher and got married and got pregnant. And almost got disowned by her mother. But her husband was not all that much of a goodnik. And they assumed partied and she went back to the farm. But she didn't assume the motherhood kind of a role. So I grew up thinking my grandmother was really the mother. But I also did a lot of work on the farm. My grandfather kept saying, this is your home. You'll learn it. You'll always have enough to eat. And I didn't know any better at that time. But he also had three sons, all three of whom he was disappointed in because they did not take over the farm. But the community in which I grew up in was a black community with four or five whites who owned farms around. So I'd say a sense of community and what community means was one of the lessons. The other was that if you want to eat, you have to work for it. Thank you for that. Ambassador, what about you? What roots do you see if you're connected to? It's interesting listening at Ambassador Perkins because there are a lot of similarities. I grew up in a small rural community. I was the oldest of eight children. Both of my parents were illiterate and underemployed. But they raised their kids for success and we all knew that the community was looking out for all of us. And being the oldest of eight, I learned to do some things that have stuck with me. I still consider myself an amazing cook. That's my description of my cooking. And I still cook for 20 people, even though it's just my husband and we were early married two kids. But we had monster truck pots where we would cook amazingly large meals to feed the community. And my mother was well known for her cooking and she cooked for the community. She took in a family when I was in high school who had lost both of their parents. And there were eight kids in that family and they were going to divide them up and send them to various homes. And my mother said, I will take them. And they lived next door. My mother cooked for all eight of them and all eight of us. So every single day we ate together as a family. And my son said to me one day, because I would always send him down to Louisiana, that he'd love to go to Louisiana because Momo, the name we call my grandmother, Momo could even make that taste good. And I grew up not knowing I was poor. I didn't realize how poor I was until I left the community. Because everybody in the community were the same. And there were some people who were better off than others. Some people who had better houses than others. But we were all part of one community. We were all related to each other. And that small community called Leland College is still there. It's still segregated. Many of the older people have died and the children are still there. My family is still in the community. And when I go home, I'm one of the few people in that community that actually left to go out of state. Many have moved farther afield in outside the Baton Rouge area. But I left and went out of a state and out of the country even. And so when I go home, I'm kind of a celebrity. People didn't figure out what I was doing for probably 30 years until I became an ambassador. And then they figured that maybe I was doing something important that they ought to pay attention to. But I have grown to appreciate the strong community spirit that existed. My father who died in 2010 was considered the patriarch of the entire community. He was one of the old timers who remained in the community and raised his kids in the community. And the community came to very much appreciate the role that he played. Interesting. Now, I can connect with the cooking. And I don't know if you both feel the same way, but doing this work in foreign policy, international affairs, a lot of the fruits of our labor we may never see or you don't immediately feel. But the art of cooking is I have something in front of me. I immediately transform it. It immediately feeds people. I get that feedback. And sometimes I feel like cooking for friends or family is a way to get a sense that I'm having some type of impact immediately on a daily basis. I do something that I call gumbo diplomacy. So I would welcome people to my home. And I kind of have to participate in the process of developing this meal. And as a diplomat I could have very high level ministers in my house chopping onions and I not always gave the onions to them to chop. But then learn all kinds of things about what's happening in the country. And develop those friendships and those long-term relationships that I think contributed to making me a successful diplomat. That's great. That's great. I want to remind those of you who are watching on Facebook that you are more than welcome to ask your own questions. Of our guests provide your own comments. My colleague Steven Ruder is moderating the discussion comment section. So he'll let us know when you have a question. So at any point during our conversation feel free to chime in. Same goes for our studio audience here in the room. If you have a question just raise your hand and we'll bring a mic to you. So kind of growing out of your lives in Louisiana I'm interested to hear what initially sparked your interest in going into international affairs. Was there a moment or where is there a specific individual that you can recall tapping into that desire that then sent you on your journey. I'll start with you. I don't think there is necessarily one thing in Louisiana. I did not see a lot of people who had anything to do with foreign affairs or affairs outside of that little community of Hainesville where I spent some years. I did meet some people. One of them turns out was a foreign service officer later in life from this little town. I never knew him of course. But when he went into the Foreign Service he wrote a column for the local newspaper on the inside looking in. He talked a little bit about his career. I remembered that and wondered how could a person from Hainesville Louisiana get to Washington D.C. Is he African American? No he was not. That was another issue that I had to come to terms with. So I discussed that with my grandmother and my aunt. My grandmother said listen there are some things that you may not be able to get in your lifetime. You've got to figure out what those are and do the things that you think are possible. So I said I'd like to get out of this little village of Hainesville and move someplace else. She said listen just study. She had collected all of the textbooks that her children brought back home. And she had her oldest daughter as my tutor. Especially in English and mathematics. Which I came to appreciate much later on in life. But it was like being in a classroom. In that classroom included I would say outreach to things that I had never heard of before. And I don't even know whether my grandmother had heard of them either. And then diplomacy came on the line as a word. Diplomacy. And so I looked it up and said reaching out to others and supported your own country. And so I read a little bit more. And found a few books actually that talked about this concept of diplomacy. And how old are you at this point? You're in your teen years? I was about ten. But I won't say if this led to any kind of conclusion. But the books that she collected and she kept and made me read. Were books that also touched other subjects. One of them, young people like you and Linda would not remember them. But it was Little Women. Meg, Joe, Beth, and Amy. And in that book were some references to the outside world. Which I came to later define as diplomacy. Getting away and representing some element of your country. I was not nearly as eloquent as I may appear today. But I wanted to get out of Louisiana. And I wanted to do some further study. And I didn't know what that really meant. But I knew that I had to get away from Louisiana. If I was ever going to see diplomacy. I have a very interesting story. And I only realized this much later in life. But in 1966, my little segregated community was jolted into the international world. When Peace Corps decided to come to Liedling College. Where there was a college, an old HBCU, that it closed down. It was a Baptist missionary church school, university. And they used that facility to train Peace Corps volunteers who were going to Africa. And the volunteers were going to Somalia and Swaziland. I was in eighth grade. And these group of young hippie-like Americans. White people that we had never seen before. Came into our community with African teachers from Somalia and Swaziland. And they invited the kids in the community to come on campus after school to learn the language. And so I went on campus every evening after school to learn to speak Saswati. I don't remember a word now. But it opened my eyes that there was a world beyond Baker, Louisiana or Liedling College where I grew up. And I would fast forward a few years and go to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin. And one of the people in an audience one evening was the Saswati teacher. Who had lived in my community and I introduced myself to her. And we became lifelong friends. And I still had not decided at that point that I was going to go into diplomacy. I still didn't know I had not been introduced to that career. But I would eventually go to Africa to study, to Liberia. And that's where I became acquainted with the Foreign Affairs community. I met my husband who was working at the embassy, the U.S. Embassy at that time. And then was introduced to the possibility of a career in the Foreign Service. So that's a long way of answering. I don't think it started with my eighth grade experience. But that was the bug that lit the fire under me. Interesting. I'd love to hear from folks who are watching on Facebook if you can recall a particular moment in an individual if you are in the field of international affairs or you want to go into the Foreign Service. Was there a bug or was there a moment that kind of sparked that initial interest? We'd love for you to share that on Facebook if you so choose. I wanted to jump a little bit to history now and look at an African-American foreign policy icon that some people may be familiar with. He was the first African-American recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize actually. His name is Ralph Bunch. And he has an interesting story and a fascinating contribution to how we understand the world today, particularly human rights. After World War II, he was part of a group of individuals that started forming the idea of the United Nations. So the charter conference that put together the document that created the United Nations, he was one of those individuals that was part of it. He went on to do mediation in the Israel-Palestine conflict, which was what eventually awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize. And he also worked with Eleanor Roosevelt in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And if we could bring up on the screen to show folks on Facebook a picture we have of Ralph Bunch and a quote that he shared in 1950 when he gave his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. And the quote is as follows. Ralph Bunch said, peace is no mere matter of men fighting or not fighting. Peace to have meaning for many who have known only suffering in both peace and war must be translated into bread or rice, shelter, health and education, as well as freedom and human dignity. A steadily better life. If peace is to be secure, long-suffering and long-starved, forgotten peoples of the world, the underprivileged and the undernourished must begin to realize without delay the promise of a new day and a new life. This is in 1950. Again, just seeing the emergence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I want to turn to our guest and hear what your experience has been in advancing and protecting and standing up for human rights as ambassadors and how that work of standing up for human rights has evolved, if at all, in the time that you've been in the Foreign Service. Ambassador Perkins, let's start with you. That's a large question. I would start off by saying that human rights came to be a part of my schema, so to speak. Or I put it another way, I would say, how am I going to approach my responsibility as a diplomat today? And I looked upon every day as an opportunity, but also as a challenge and a danger as well. I don't think I am really quite understood the range of hatred or, I guess, in consideration that can encase a person, a community, a family, or government until I went abroad. And then I began to compare things I found abroad with things that were happening here in the United States. I think perhaps the journey of equality, so to speak, in this country amongst men and women began a long time ago, it's been slow at times, and sometimes seemingly fast, but never fast, never too fast. And I realized that as soon as I spent a few days in another country, in this case it was Ghana, and then I began to ask myself, what am I doing here? Because I was a political council there. I said, what do political councils do? And I began to travel around the country and met a lot of people. I traveled alone. I never had any kind of escort. But I got a lot of questions of this black American who was traveling alone, and they wanted to know what I thought about their country, and what are some of the things that you think you can do to make us like you and your country better? Because you were a black American. What kind of sales pitch, what kind of sales pitch can you present that will make sense? Because you come from a country that is notorious for denying people their rights as human beings. And then I learned not only to answer questions like that, but to admit and learn, admit that my own country had a long way to go and that I should never, ever shy from saying it. I needed to understand what that really meant. How it started. I got a copy of the Constitution and began to memorize it and then to find words that others had written about certain parts of the Constitution. The bottom line was Perkins, if you do not understand what it means to be a citizen of the United States with all of its inadequacies and pluses too, then you can't be a diplomat because you're going out among the people and you're going to ask a lot of questions. And what do you say to that? I would say that it was one of the greatest lessons I think I learned about myself and that I needed to do other things, learn other things in order to make a saleable pitch, I guess. A saleable pitch to those whom I was trying to convince that the United States had a role to play in their country and in the world and we needed support to do that. And here you are, I'm giving you my pitch. And now I realize silently that they were saying, I wonder if you really understand where he came from. And a little later on I was still learned that a lot of people who asked that question to themselves when they would see me, you came from the United States, a country that is notorious for denying people human rights and you're selling human rights to us, how can you do that? And that question reverberated again and again within my own repertoire, I guess. So it has never been far away from my little globe of things that I need to know and need to talk about and think about even today. What about you? I was thinking about this as you asked and growing up in the community I was growing up in, we were comfortable in our isolation and comfortable in our segregation and I didn't realize the extent to which our human rights were being violated until Peace Corps came into our community with Africans and they forced this little community to open up some doors that had never been open for the black people in the community. We accepted it for white only signs and the black signs on water fountains and going into the doctor's office, going through the back door. We accepted it because that's all we knew until Peace Corps came. And so they initiated protests in our community to ensure that the local laundromat would allow the Africans who were with them to come in to wash their clothes and when they did that they opened up for the rest of the community. And so I was very conscious of this from a very young age and when I eventually left Louisiana and eventually found myself in Liberia in the 1970s working in small communities and seeing the disparities in those communities identified with the downtrodden, always, not the elite or the upper class. I made myself become one of the downtrodden to understand where they were coming from and eventually would come into the Foreign Service with that concept and that idea and I spent most of the first years of my career working in humanitarian work, working with refugees, working with displaced, working with people whose human rights had been violated by their governments and it became for me a goal in life to do something every day that would improve the lives of others. It became part of our foreign policy, I think, eventually during the Carter years but eventually we started writing human rights reports. It became a part of what we promoted as U.S. national interests. It became part of our values that we promoted in our foreign policy but for me personally it was always there. It was always part of the way I thought and one of the things that I was most proud of when I was in Liberia I felt that my job was not just to represent the U.S. government to the government of Liberia my job was to represent the people of the United States to the people of Liberia so I spent a lot of time in markets, on the streets, talking to poor people and trying to understand why they were where they were and to give them hope. I remember sitting in a graduating class and there were a lot of mothers who were so proud that their kids were graduating and I asked the question in the room how many of you mothers can read and write and there was just silence and there was embarrassment as I looked out at their faces and I said I'm not trying to embarrass you. My mother and father could not read and write. My mother got her high school diploma in 1989, 19 years after I got my high school diploma from the segregated school that I couldn't go to. So there's hope for you mothers in the room and the school that day started a reading program for adults and I'm still getting reports from that school of the number of adults that they have taught to read and write since I gave that speech and so for me it's part of my psyche, it's part of my makeup to look for how as an individual I can make a difference in somebody's life every single day. That's powerful, that's powerful. I wanted to talk about another individual in history that ties with a lot of what you all just shared because what I was hearing a little bit was a full on awareness of what was happening domestically here in this country as you all began your professional journey working abroad, understanding or getting a fuller picture of human rights and how they're being violated in other parts of the world but at the same time there are serious issues here in the United States particularly with black communities. So I'm sensing a little bit of a grappling with that as you went in your career and so I wanted to bring up the next slide of a woman by the name of Edith Samson and Edith Samson was the first African-American delegate to United Nations and she was the first African-American representative to NATO and an absolutely fascinating woman who had an amazing career as a judge prior to any of her international work and the reason that I wanted to bring up is not only her contributions to international affairs and the influence that she had but also in learning about her and reading some of the things that she said throughout her career I was hearing some things that are similar to what you all just shared so we have a couple quotes that we have up on the screen now and in 1949 Edith Samson was part of a around the world town meeting trip and she along with a couple dozen other Americans traveled around the world to different countries and met with world leaders so these are prominent Americans that were sent around the world and they engaged in political debates and radio broadcasts with these world leaders and again this is in 1949 so inevitably she as an African-American was going to get a question around well what are your thoughts on how African-Americans are treated in your country and she was aware that oftentimes these questions would be coming as an attempt to advance communist propaganda and so she said on a radio broadcast I believe quote I would rather be a Negro in America than a citizen in any other land and that got a lot of people back here in the United States I think to perk up a little bit and said oh I want to learn a little bit more about this Edith Samson woman but then fast forward about ten years later 1960 she's giving a graduation speech at a high school and she said quote we have convinced ourselves because it seems so necessary that the battle against injustice could be won piece by piece through changes in law through court appeals through persistent but cautious pressures we were mistaken no we were wrong ours was not the only way it was not even the best way now I have my own interpretation of this in terms of what type of evolution she may have gone through between 1940-1960 when she started traveling the world and was representing the United States but she's also an African-American woman who has an experience that is unique to that identity and so my question to both of you is did you ever struggle with that as you got into the field of foreign policy recognizing that there were injustices and rights that were being violated here in the United States specifically within the black community communities in which you grew up in yet or and your profession takes you overseas to other parts of the world when there were still struggles happening here in the United States I ask this because I think this is something that a lot of people of color African-Americans in particular struggle with when they're deciding do I go into international affairs or foreign policy there's so many issues here in this country that I can put my energy towards why would I do it overseas when there's so much work to be done here how did you all wrestle with that question if at all Ambassador Perkins excuse me it's certainly a it's a question that's always been with us whether we are diplomats or a neighborhood people I think that I probably saw it clearer I guess because it was always with me when I went off to South Africa to be the ambassador for the United States I was very much aware that I'd had I'd had a a wide range in conversation with President Ray that solo just Ray and myself talking and he had been convinced by the Secretary of State that we really ought to make our Ambassador to South Africa a change agent in South Africa unhindered by words from the President or Secretary of State let's find somebody and send them there and let them do what they need to do and this is 1986 South Africa is still very much partied fully committed to partied government and Reagan is saying we want a change agent so continue I don't think the President had that idea by himself I think Schultz gave him that idea but nevertheless he met with me one Saturday morning for about two hours two and a half hours I guess at the White House in the Oval Office actually I was in the Lakin Room and he said look George tells me that we cannot sit idly by as a nation and have people protesting that here in our country out of citizens protesting what's going on in South Africa and not do anything and what we ought to be doing is trying to change things and I don't know what Reagan said to him but the next thing I knew I was in the hot seat asked to come back to Washington and I was at my first post I guess in Liberia but my point is that Schultz and Reagan together I guess with certain shows realized that the United States in order to have a coherent policy towards the nation not towards a lot of nations needs to be a change agent when necessary and how do you be a change agent well Schultz told me when he talked to me about this he said I told the president we need to find the most likely person who would be a change agent for the president of the United States without the president giving him any instructions and Schultz said I then went around and asked for several lists of people who might fit that and then I changed it and said we are looking for a black American foreign service officer to do this and I'd get these lists and he said you know something your name was on every one of them and so I said to myself I don't know what's going to happen to me but this is not good and so then I got a call again from the secretary he said look I told the president that we have to do something in South Africa we can't sit idly by have a relationship with a country that has this segregationist system in place and then we have American citizens protesting here in this country in this city against that and he said I want to send your name over to the president I think maybe you might be the person to go but the president said he wants to interview you and that was that Saturday morning the president asked me every possible question he could think of something I didn't think he even knew about one of them was where were you born and he wanted to know about northern Louisiana wanted to know your grandmother, grandfather and how did you get out of that place he said and I said well I ended up in a place called Pine Bluff, Arkansas he said where is that and I told him that my mother and her husband were there and that's where my grandmother said I had to go to get out of the community he said it was a good thing right I said yes it was he said look George wants to send you to South Africa he thinks maybe a black American foreign service officer would be able to do the kinds of things that we try to do from here so if I send you what are you going to do I said to the president I am aware that the black people of South Africa consider you to be a racist and what do you think I said well I don't think you quite understand the problem that blacks in South Africa have and what South Africa has in terms of its troubles for the future I said so if you send me I would try to convince the black people that maybe there is an ally in you for change I said how are you going to do it so I said well I will travel to all the communities and get to know as many people as possible he said what does the blacks want to talk to you in representing me I said well I will keep trying he said what about the white people I said they have a stake in the country as well I said but they can't take it all it has to be a kind of a share role and I will be promoting that as well he talked to another I will ask him questions back and forth I must tell you it was I have never been more surprised in my life I just didn't think that this president had all that in him to sit there with me with no nobody handing him any notes or anything like that well it was all over and he said ok thank you very much for coming and he had John Poindexter and John Regan he was sometimes cheated with him but they sat in the back room and never said a word he said ok this is it I am going to Camp David I would ask you to come out to the plane to see me off but it is not time for you to go so I bring up this story to say this South Africa was clearly a challenge for me that I never even thought existed but then when I got there I realized that my own understanding of where my country fits his own trial in my mind as well and it didn't take long for an Africana to give a major speech about this crazy ambassador who thinks his country is perfect and ours is not I then gave a speech the next day talking about the imperfections of the United States and sometimes efforts to try and change it I said but the real issue is what do we try to do and do we really believe it I said I believe in what I'm doing in South Africa so I think apartheid is wrong and here's why it's wrong and the imperfections in the United States are open and wide for everybody to see and we have a lot of people more and more every day who are saying this is wrong so I would say that South Africa presented to me a side of myself that I didn't even know existed and that is that if you really want to support the rights of humans you got to practice them all the time every day in what you do and South Africa brought that front and center to me in a way that nothing else could have done every day it was that way Thank you, thank you for that Ambassador Thomas Greenfield I want to phrase the question a little bit differently for you I was talking about Edith Samson she gave this graduation speech at this high school and I learned about you that you gave a commencement address at the high school that you were not allowed to go to when you were a kid growing up because it was an all-white school it was during a time of segregation and so you went and gave the graduation speech or commencement speech at the school that you yourself were not allowed to attend because you were black could you take us to that moment what was that like for you and what did you share with those young people at that speech given the history that you had in that community and how things had changed from when you were a student what was your commencement address at this school that was an interesting moment because as we were sitting on the stage and I was talking to the principal she didn't realize that I had not graduated from Baker High School so they had invited me back to speak as a graduate of the school because the segregation ended officially in Louisiana in 1970 and I graduated from high school in 1970 in May so starting in September of 1970 all of my brothers and sisters went to Baker High School and so as I'm sitting there I said to her I always wanted to come into this auditorium and she looked at me and she said is this the first time you're here and I said yes this is the first time I'm here she said what year did you graduate I said I graduated in 1970 from Northwestern High School in Zachary the town down the road I couldn't come to Baker High School so I think she was in shock she didn't quite know what I was going to say in my speech and so I stood up and I said to the students that for my entire life I was bussed for segregation and that I took a bus every morning past Baker High School past Zachary High School the town down the road past Northwestern High School the only school that African-Americans were allowed to go to in 1970 although there were a handful whose parents were brave enough to send their kids to school before the segregation was officially ended and I talked about the experience of having books that were secondhand books from Baker High School at my school and I talked about the fact that I had the experience of having some of the best teachers in the world they were teachers who cared about me there were teachers who if I decided to say a bad word at school which I did who would come and knock on my mother's door because they lived in the community with us and they cared about our success and that while I had gone to a segregated school I thought that I had become the person I was because I'd gone to that school and that we'd fast forward this year and suddenly I'm looking out at the audience at the school and it's 90% black kids and I said to them you have opportunities that I didn't have and I want you to take advantage of those opportunities that you have to take this and make the best of it and make something of your lives and I asked my mother to stand up who was there and said my mother graduated from the school in 1989 she got her GED and she marched with the class of 1989 and that's how far we had come in all of those many years I don't remember the year that I gave the address but it was probably 20 plus years later and I think again that was the first time that the school had grappled with their history and the school understood the history that they that they had built in this community and I shared with them that there was a school across the street it was a Baptist Christian school and that one of the things that affected me in my life and people didn't know is when someone from the south told me they came from a Christian school I knew that they had gone to that school because their parents had pulled them out of school because they didn't want them to go to school with black kids and many of my white colleagues didn't realize that because they were little kids and they were pulled out of their schools where they were comfortable and segregated schools because their parents didn't want them to go to school with black kids and it was a history lesson for the kids who were in the room for the white kids who were in the room and for the 90% black students who were in the room and also for their teachers and it was very cathartic for me That's powerful, it's amazing that they also hadn't done their research They hadn't done their research Wow, that is amazing and our audience and folks online if there are any questions to go ahead and type them in and do we have one from the... Reina asked if you guys could please provide some advice on entering a career in security and development if they're not taking the foreign service route You did, but if you have any advice about that Some advice on careers in... In security and development There are careers in security and development that are not necessarily connected to the State Department and I still do think the State Department is a wonderful option I've had 35 years Ambassador Perkins was my mentor I don't know that he realizes the extent to which he mentored me even by the knowledge of his history before I got to know him and work for him I also have mentors who are working in various fields of international affairs and national security whether they are working for the UN they can be working for non-governmental organizations Department of Defense, USAID There are all kinds of options out there and one of the best options that I refer young people to is Peace Corps I am a strong advocate of Peace Corps but my Peace Corps experience as a little girl in eighth grade has stayed with me for my entire life and Peace Corps will give you the opportunity to delve into international affairs but at the people to people level and if you can succeed at that you can parlay that into a successful career working in international affairs in any area Any other questions from our audience, Facebook audience? Yeah we had a question from you guys have talked a lot about this but this is from Kenneth Namdi who I believe is in Nigeria but he asked for people who don't have who don't come from elite backgrounds or elite families what are some routes to leadership in this field? That question reminds me of an article that you and Ambassador Pickering wrote in Washington Post back in 2015 about the Foreign Service being very white and how there needs to be work to diversify the Foreign Service and you mentioned in that article that for generations, for decades the Foreign Service kind of plucked people from elite institutions and universities that black people just didn't have access to so I see there might be some connections with that question as well about if you're not going to quote unquote elite institutions what's that pathway into this profession? Well if I were to say that everything is peachy cream now I would be telling you something that's not true I think in something that I'm doing and writing now I did some research on where Foreign Service offices come from today and today a significant portion of them still come from the east the Ivy community but there's an increase in people coming from the south from Texas, Georgia Louisiana and I've had students call me from Atlanta for example on Norman, Oklahoma about coming into the Foreign Service all kinds of colors and they said somebody gave me your name and asked me to call you and ask you about the Foreign Service is it an elitist organization do I have a chance to get into it and I said it's as elite as you want to make it which means that you need to think about why you want to be a Foreign Service officer I can tell you why we need you but you have to say why you want to come and she said I gave a lecture at one of the colleges at the University of Oklahoma not too long ago about the Foreign Service and Wednesday I will give a on the line lecture with three students at that University who want to talk about the Foreign Service and their careers and I think it's important to think about the Foreign Service has another career on the line that you can think about but more importantly I think the Foreign Service is like any other profession one prepares for it one researchers and the best way to do it is to read but also to get to know people who have been Foreign Service officers or who have had that kind of a career and that's why I am an advocate of schools when Ambassador Linda was Director General she pushed hard for relations with educational institutions in places that nobody ever thinks about anymore or didn't think about before then so it's important for people who want to be in Foreign Service to think about people who might be able to help them and that's all over it's every career is like that it's not just the Foreign Service and that's the most important thing I can think get to know somebody who can tell you things I get calls often from someone who said do you know so and so at displays he asked me to call you and talk to you about coming into the Foreign Service I said okay he said she said I didn't think you would talk to me I said well what do you want to know and she said well can I just talk now I said sure and later on she told me and said you know she didn't think that someone like you would talk to someone like her so I said citizenship means just talking to people who are citizens and I said if she comes into Foreign Service and makes a hit on it she's serving me just as she's serving herself that's the important thing so we're coming close to the end of our time but there are two other questions that I wanted to touch on and if we could bring up the last slide look at another prominent African American from history and that individual is Dizzy Gillespie and this is a question on cultural diplomacy and so for those of you who may not know Dizzy Gillespie in I believe it was 1956 jazz music became a critical tool in our diplomatic toolbox this was in the part of the Cold War there were parts of the world that were quite hostile to the United States and a decision was made that one of the kind of shining contributions that America has made to the world is that of jazz music which is a quintessentially African American art form and so Dizzy Gillespie was approached and asked if he with the State Department would go around the world as a cultural ambassador sharing his music his jazz music and so he went to places like Iran and Syria Pakistan and Greece and I believe the story in Greece was there had been riots at the American Embassy and people were throwing stones and things at the American Embassy and going to Greece wasn't part of I think planned part of the tour but they said we got to send Dizzy Gillespie and his band to Athens because things are really hot there and it's a diplomatic success for us to kind of calm things down anyway I really see and correct me if I'm wrong I see this jazz diplomacy as really the first time that this concept of cultural diplomacy became prominent in American foreign policy and so we have this picture up here on the on the screen of Dizzy Gillespie and the first quote touching on some of the things we talked about earlier is he said when asked about this tour he said I sort of like the idea of representing America but I wasn't going over to apologize for the racist policies of America so he had that I think was grappling with some of that as well and said if I'm going to do this I'm going to do it the way that I feel is right and fully represents all that is America good and bad and then he also said that quote jazz is our own American folk music that communicates with all people language or social barriers and I think that quote you can apply to all forms of culture and so my question to both of you is I think specifically in recent years there has thank goodness been a greater appreciation understanding of the contributions of African American culture to the larger American concept of America whether it's in music or in scholarship or literature or science you name it there has been more recognition and so my question to you is how have you seen aspects of African American culture resonating in your work abroad when you were ambassador or doing trips abroad what aspects of African American culture do you feel have resonated the most with those communities well certainly music and as you were talking I was thinking when hip hop and rap music started and us perennials someone referred to my age group as perennials were kind of upset about this music you know and I would say to my kids you know I like music where I understand the words and I can remember the beat and this hip hop stuff is just not going to go anywhere well you go all over the world now there's not a country Europe Africa Asia during the Olympics we had South Koreans doing hip hop on international television and where did that start it started in the African American community and so it is a tool of diplomacy that I think helps people to understand and appreciate the role that African Americans have played in American culture and I have come with great difficulty to appreciate hip hop and rap as well do you have a particular artist in particular that you listen to? you know it's funny she's not hip hop and rap anymore but I just love Mary J. Bly but I love her new music but I have now gone back to listen to her during her hip hop period and getting there slowly and also now an Oscar nominated actor she hits home runs in all categories Ambassador Perkins what about you and your travels your work overseas what aspects of African American culture have you seen kind of resonating with folks? certainly jazz believe it or not country music but I had one experience which brought it home to me when Namibia got its independence I just come back from South Africa and the then Secretary of State had been commissioned by the president to go to Namibia and witness the independence and he called me and he said look I know you're a director general now but I want you to go with me to Namibia and then he said we have an extra seat on the plane there are two people who are vying for the seats I said well who are they he said well I probably won't tell you who one of them is but one of them is Dizzy Gillespie I said bring Dizzy and Dizzy rode down with us on that plane and Baker brought him up front in main cabin and before long he and Baker Baker was saying that Dizzy was playing on his flugel horn and finally he asked a lot of questions he wanted to know what my experience in South Africa and the Foreign Service so by the time we got down to Winslow he said well Mr. Ambassador I've had another education just talking to you here's a picture of my autograph he said I'd be really pleased if you could find a place to hang it and so I have it I have it hanging in a little study that I use one of the most interesting people I've ever met in my life we talked about everything you could think of what a man and when I think of people like that I think of what a rich country the United States is and we should never forget it and we ought to promote it every time we possibly can and not be ashamed of it but learn from it as well learn from it as well that's great what a plane ride that's great so the last question I want to I'm going to ask of you is you mentioned the Peace Corps and how America has represented abroad and I kept coming back to a story that my dad has told me many times my dad grew up in Guyana and he had a Peace Corps volunteer that came and worked in his community and he said that was a transformative experience for him because this American came into his small community in Guyana he'd never left the country before and for those of you Guyana is kind of part Afro-Gyanese folks from African descent and part Indo-Gyanese folks from Indian descent and some Amerindian indigenous folks so black and brown people in Guyana not a lot of white people and this white American came Peace Corps volunteer and one of the first questions that he asked the students was when you think of America what do you think of and I'm trying to figure out what year I started at 61 I think earlier Peace Corps yeah so 1960s I was like I don't want to date my dad too much but so he said that he answered this question and my dad said that oh I think of a blonde haired blue-eyed person driving a red sports car on the beach because his exposure to the United States up to that point were these movies that just portrayed mostly white people on the beach driving sports cars and the Peace Corps volunteer said no America's that and much more and his people who have all different skin colors and people who live in this type of community that type of community believe this or believe that and that was a transformative experience for my dad as a young Guyaneese kid and so my question to you all the kind of last thing to share with our audience and it goes to what you were saying earlier Ambassador Perkins around why do you want to go into the Foreign Service or why would someone want to go into the field of international affairs or diplomacy and the question is why is it important for more African Americans and people of color to be doing this work why should they look at this as a profession that needs them that can only get better when it becomes more diverse and kind of more representative what is your sales pitch to those who are considering well I think one of the strongest points that we have to offer as a nation is the concept of community I think it's necessary that African Americans be given a chance to represent their community when we go as Foreign Service officers representing the United States but we also represent 12 dozen communities different kinds of communities that have different kinds of experiences and different kinds of values I don't think the African American community per se has been adequately portrayed in our foreign policy around the world and I think there is a lot there to be pitched I think of a constitution will be a much more living constitution as a result of this kind of presentation from all kinds of communities constitution I really do believe there is a living document the living part of it comes as a result of communities living the constitution understanding the constitution it's a backbone and they'll make it stronger make the constitution stronger that's the key one of the greatest strengths of the country I would argue is our diversity and I don't think there are any other countries in the world that can reflect the broad diversity that exists in the United States I remember attending a meeting at the AU with the Chinese and the colleague supporting me at that meeting was a Chinese American and it was clear when the Chinese came in the room that they thought he didn't realize that he was there to represent the United States and there was a lot of fumbling going on and I asked what was going on and he said they're trying to figure out who I am and I said come sit next to me and they will know who you are and I thought that sent a huge, huge message the world needs to know that we value diversity so that they too can value the diversity that exists in their countries and whether it's ethnic diversity or it's racial diversity or it's economic diversity all of those things bring different values to the table when you have people in the room and I have always been supportive of this I was and you probably read this I was in Rwanda during the genocide and I think that I was in jeopardy is because even the Rwandans didn't realize a black person in the room could be a Foreign Service Officer and so everybody needs to know when a person walks in the room representing the United States they represent the United States and they need to know that we are a nation of many different hues and that we are a nation of many different backgrounds and that when you see America you see a patchwork quote of people who come from all places in the world I didn't know you were originally from Guiana and I think that's an important fact and it's not that you're not any more American than any of us who were born in America we're all Americans when it comes down to the grit of it and I think that gives the world a picture of our country and we need to encourage and we need to promote. Well I want to thank both of you tremendously from the bottom of my heart for taking the time today to sit with us share with us your stories, your journeys, your experience, your insights are tremendously valuable for all of us that do not just do this work but I think more broadly as well so thank you so much for coming to Thomas Greenfield Ambassador Edward Perkins for being with us today and thanks to everyone who has joined us on Facebook live you've been listening and watching the Peace Frequency a podcast series that taps into the stories of people across the globe who are making peace possible and finding ways to create a world without violence please you can see a recording of this it will be up on our podcast network soon and on YouTube as well so until our next episode keep building supporting and learning peace