Linda Thomas-Greenfield used her veto three times to stop Security Council resolutions on the war in Gaza (Reuters)
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, an African-American diplomat and her country's ambassador to the United Nations, used her veto three times against a draft resolution in the Security Council regarding a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip after the Israeli aggression that began on the Strip on October 7. First 2023.
She joined the US diplomatic corps in 1982, and held several positions, most notably Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, during the era of former President Barack Obama.
Birth and upbringing
Linda Thomas Greenfield was born on November 22, 1952, in the town of Baker, Louisiana, USA, to a humble, poor family.
She is the eldest daughter among 8 children of a mother who worked as a cook, and a father who worked as a worker, and both of them had a modest level of education.
Linda grew up in a small, segregated town terrorized by the Ku Klux Klan, which has a history of violence for more than 150 years, especially against African Americans.
She says that followers of this organization would regularly come on weekends to burn a cross in the yard of a resident's house.
Linda lived her childhood amid stifling racial segregation in Louisiana in the early 1950s, and suffered discrimination that extended to her university education.
Her classmates call her "Grenvy," but she says her favorite name is Linda.
She married Lafayette Mastin, also an employee of the US State Department, whom she met during her studies in Liberia in the 1970s, and they have a daughter, a son, and a grandchild.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield at the Security Council meeting on October 16, 2023 (Reuters)
Study and scientific training
She was the first person in her family to earn a high school diploma, and graduated in 1970 from a school that segregated blacks and whites.
She then chose to attend Louisiana State University, and was one of the first African-American women to enter this university. She studied at that time with David Duke, a white supremacist and leader of the Ku Klux Klan, who had a large presence on campus.
Linda was among the first batch of black students whom the court forced the university to integrate. She said that she faced a “hostile environment” and suffered from harassment and racism. She revealed that one of her professors gave her a low grade in the evaluation, and when she asked him about the reason, they answered her, “If you do not know the answer to this question.” "You don't have to be at university."
After receiving her bachelor's degree in 1974, she traveled to Wisconsin to pursue graduate studies at the University of Madison.
It was her first time on a plane and leaving the deep South and the American community located near Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana, and it was a culture shock for her, she said.
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which was founded in 1948, she was a research student in African affairs in the Department of Political Science. She adapted well and established relationships with fellow students and faculty members, including M. Crawford Young, professor of political science and one of the most prominent researchers in African politics ( He died in 2020).
After receiving her master's degree in 1975, she continued her academic work towards a doctoral degree, passed her preliminary examinations, and was awarded a fellowship to conduct field research for her thesis in Liberia for more than a year, and her work there served as a formative experience for her future role and diplomatic work.
In 2012, the University of Liberia awarded her an honorary doctorate, and in May 2018, the University of Wisconsin awarded her a similar degree, nominated by the African Studies Program, within the International Department and the Department of Political Science.
In her commencement speech, she praised the university's influence on her career as a scholar and diplomat.
“I know that what I have achieved in my life is the result of the exceptional education I received at this university and the relationships I formed here,” she said, stressing that all the major milestones in her life began on this campus.
Professional life
She began her career as a professor of political science at Bucknell University, a private university in Pennsylvania, and then took the entrance exam into the diplomatic corps and passed it successfully.
After a career spanning 35 years in the US State Department, she returned to work in the private sector in 2017, at the age of 64.
She held the position of Senior Vice President of the Albright Stonebridge Group in Washington, DC, and headed the African Transactions Department.
It is a strategic trade diplomacy company co-chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez.
She was also the first Distinguished Resident Fellow in African Studies at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University from 2017 to 2019.
Her role extended to young leaders visiting the University of Wisconsin-Madison from Africa, and she served as a mentor for them through an initiative she launched called “Young African Leaders.”
Linda Thomas-Greenfield makes statements following her veto vote in the Security Council on February 20, 2024 (Reuters)
Diplomatic missions
Linda Greenfield joined the US State Department, and in her first foreign assignment, she worked as a consular officer at the US Embassy in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1982.
In Washington, she worked from 1991 to 1993 as a staff assistant in the Office of the Director General of the Foreign Service.
In April 1994, she was appointed to the US Embassy in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda.
She then served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, from 2004 to 2006, and then served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of African Affairs during the Ebola crisis, from 2006 to 2008.
On June 6, 2008, former President George W. Bush appointed her as US Ambassador to Liberia, until February 29, 2012.
On April 2, 2012, she assumed the position of Director General of the Diplomatic Corps in the Human Resources Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, until August 2, 2013.
During this period, she led a team of approximately 400 employees, handling the functions of the State Department's 70,000-employee workforce, from recruitment to evaluations, promotions, and retirement.
In addition, she held diplomatic positions in other countries, most notably Switzerland, Pakistan, Kenya, Gambia, and Nigeria.
On August 6, 2013, she was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs in the administration of former President Barack Obama, and at that time led the task of developing and managing US policy towards sub-Saharan Africa. She was responsible for 45 embassies and 5 consulates in 49 countries across the continent, before Former President Donald Trump will end her duties on March 12, 2017.
"Jumbo" diplomacy
Linda Greenfield says she learned diplomacy at a young age in Louisiana, when she passed the eighth grade.
When she was 13 years old, the Peace Corps visited this small town (where she grew up) in the mid-1960s to train volunteers who were going to Africa.
This experience strengthened her desire to become a diplomat, and in the early 1980s she succeeded in what she sought, when the diplomatic corps was almost exclusively owned by white men who graduated from prestigious universities.
Until 1986, she was one of 6 black ambassadors.
At the beginning of her diplomatic career, she was warned about the difficulty of success for someone like her, and there she met Edward Perkins, who had a great influence on her career path.
Perkins was the first African American appointed US Ambassador to South Africa, was Ambassador to Liberia, and went on to serve as Ambassador to the United Nations, the same jobs that Linda eventually held.
A few months after beginning her diplomatic career, the State Department faced a class-action lawsuit from black Foreign Service officers, and this grueling experience opened her eyes to the adversity she would face in her career.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield speaks before the United Nations General Assembly on February 23, 2024 (Reuters)
In 1994 in Rwanda, which was then experiencing a genocidal war, she was a guest of an American official, and the attackers pointed a gun in her face and she was on the verge of death. They suspected that she was an American diplomat because of her African background, and she was detained at gunpoint until her nationality was proven.
She did not talk about the incident for years, and when she finally did, she said, "It brought out my improved diplomatic smile, which my mother taught me."
Her special style, which she was known for during her work on 4 continents, was what she called “jumbo diplomacy,” which helped advance the agenda.
At her kitchen table, she often prepared a Cajun dish for her foreign counterparts on various occasions, in order to remove barriers during diplomatic talks, according to the Washington Post.
Even when US President Joe Biden turned her job as ambassador to the United Nations into a ministerial position, she said, “I am still a largely professional person, even though I work in a political job.” She considers herself a professional bureaucrat, and says that the political space is uncomfortable for her.
In her speech at a hearing before the US Senate (Congress), she stressed that effective diplomacy means more than shaking hands and taking memorial photos, and that the hard work in it takes place behind closed doors, and “more often than not, progress occurs outside the Security Council hall.”
America's representative to the United Nations
On January 20, 2021, Biden announced Linda’s nomination to be the permanent representative of the United States to the United Nations, as well as to the UN Security Council.
On February 23, 2021, the 100 members of the US Senate approved her appointment, with 63 votes to 19 who rejected her appointment, and on February 24, 2021, Vice President Kamala Harris officiated the swearing-in ceremony for Linda Greenfield.
On February 25, the veteran diplomat signed her credentials as a new ambassador in front of Secretary-General António Guterres.
On March 1, 2021, she assumed the rotating presidency of the Security Council for a month.
Linda has become the 31st person to lead the American mission to the United Nations, since its establishment in 1947. She is also one of 4 black women in the Biden government, the second woman of African descent to hold this position after Susan Rice, and the seventh woman in a row to hold the highest diplomatic position. After the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Former US Secretary of State John Kerry says of her, "She knows how to be tough, without being annoying."
American veto vote
Linda Greenfield raised her veto in the Security Council in the face of draft resolutions for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip after the Israeli aggression that followed the “Al-Aqsa Flood” battle on October 7, 2023.
The US veto against the Gaza Strip was repeated by Greenfield on October 12, 2023, December 16, 2023, and February 20, 2024.
Awards and honors
In 2000 she received the Warren Christopher Award for Distinguished Achievement in World Affairs.
Awards for outstanding and meritorious performance, including the Presidential Meritorious Service Award.
2017 Hubert Humphrey Public Leadership Award from the University of Minnesota.
Bishop John T. Walker Distinguished Human Services Award 2015.
Source: Al Jazeera + websites