William Henry Hunt (diplomat)

Engraving adapted from photo of William Henry Hunt

William Henry Hunt (1863–1951) was an African-American diplomat, one of the few blacks in the United States diplomatic corps (foreign service) during the 19th century.

Born into slavery in Tennessee, Hunt moved north where he was educated at Williams College. He was befriended by Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, who hired him as an aide for his 1897 consular posting in Madagascar. Hunt was appointed to succeed Gibbs there, and went on to serve at posts in France, Portugal, Guadeloupe and Liberia, retiring in 1932. He settled in Arkansas, where he became active in law and politics.

Life

William Hunt was born into slavery in 1863 in Tennessee, which was occupied from 1862 by Union troops during the American Civil War. He was of mixed race, as was his mother, whose father is believed to be a white planter who served as vice president.[1] Through a series of lucky encounters, he acquired a patron and was educated at Lawrence Academy in Massachusetts. He enrolled as one of three African-American students at Williams College in Massachusetts in the 1880s.[2]

During this period he met Ida Alexander Gibbs about 1889.[1] She introduced him to her father, Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, a judge who was appointed as United States Consul to Madagascar in 1897 and hired Hunt as his aide.[2]

In 1904 Hunt married Ida Gibbs (1862-1957) in Madagascar, where he had been appointed to succeed her father.[2][3] She had been educated at Oberlin College and was a friend of W. E. B. Du Bois. Ida Gibbs Hunt and Du Bois worked together on the Pan-African Congresses held in Europe in the 1910s and 1920s. In 1923 in London, she gave a talk on "The Colored Races and the League of Nations." [2]

Hunt served in the United States diplomatic corps in Madagascar, France, Portugal, Guadeloupe and Liberia, retiring in 1932. His later career included law and politics in Arkansas.[2]

Claude McKay refers in his novel Banjo (1929) to a "Negroid" consul working at an American consulate in a "town near Lyon," France (likely intended to refer to Hunt).[4] McKay was part of the Harlem Renaissance.

References

  1. 1 2 Joel Dreyfuss, "A Black Power Couple in the Early 20th Century", The Root, 28 May 2010, accessed 5 January 2015
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Martha A. Sandweiss, "Book review: 'Parallel Worlds: The Remarkable Gibbs-Hunt and the Enduring (In)significance of Melanin' by Adele Logan Alexander", Washington Post, 16 May 2010, accessed 5 January 2015
  3. ↑ "Hunt, Ida Alexander Gibbs (1862-1957)", BlackPast.org.
  4. ↑ Roberts, Brian (2013). Artistic Ambassadors: Literary and International Representation of the New Negro Era. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. pp. 66–67.

Further reading

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Monday, October 05, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.