U.S. race relations and foreign policy

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated in 1998 that one of her “most important jobs is to call attention to the dangers that still confront us and to the direct connection that exists between the success or failure of our foreign policy and the day-to-day lives of the American people.” In this talk, Ambassador Page will explore the presence and impact of race relations on U.S. foreign policy and U.S. actions at home. She will speak to these issues through the lens of the diplomatic profession, including through the unique challenges and experiences she faced as a Black woman, and first U.S. ambassador to the world’s newest independent nation, the Republic of South Sudan, serving under the first Bi-racial American President of the U.S.

This event is hosted by the Donia Human Rights Center and co-sponsored by the African Studies Center, Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy International Policy Center and Weiser Diplomacy Center, and University of Michigan Law School.

Faculty Expert

Susan D. Page

Professor of Practice in International Diplomacy at the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, and Professor from Practice at the University of Michigan's Law School. Director; Weiser Diplomacy Center

Page applies her vast foreign policy experience to the Weiser Diplomacy Center. She has served the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the United Nations, and non-governmental organizations in senior roles for decades, across East, Central, and Southern Africa, and in Haiti and Nepal. Page was the first U.S. ambassador to the Republic of South Sudan and served as Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations in Haiti.

• Susan Page
• foreign policy
• Donia Human Rights Center
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Lecture
• race
• South Sudan
• diplomacy impact
• diplomacy