James E. Baker papers

James Estes Baker graduated from Haverford College in 1956, and in 1960 began a 35 tenure as a Foreign Service officer, which included his appointment as the first Black diplomat to serve in South Africa during apartheid. He was born in the small town of Suffolk, Virginia in 1935. Upon completing his Haverford education in 1956, he went on to the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and graduated the following year. He joined the U.S. diplomatic corps in 1960, and served in a variety of roles, including positions with the UN, until his retirement in 1995. After retiring from the Foreign Service he taught diplomacy, crisis intervention and emergency relief as an adjunct professor at Southampton College.

During his early career as a U.S. diplomat, James Barker held positions in Japan and several African countries, including South Africa. As the first Black diplomat appointed to Pretoria during apartheid, he received significant media attention in the both the United States and South Africa. After serving as an economics specialist at the Pretoria embassy from 1973 to 1975, he left South Africa to begin work for the United States Mission to the United Nations. In 1980, he began work in the U.N. office of the inspector general and subsequently worked in economic development. During his final years at the U.N., he directed emergency relief programs, primarily in Angola, Somalia, and other African nations. In 1995, he retired from the Foreign Service and became an adjunct professor at Southampton College, teaching diplomacy, crisis intervention, and emergency relief. He died of lung disease in New York on April 15, 2001, at the age of 66; he was survived by his partner, John Hawkins '56.