IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF A GIANT - AURELIA BRAZEAL

 IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF A GIANT

Aurelia Brazeal

Aurelia Brazeal followed in the footsteps of her father.  She had some big shoes to fill.  For those of you who don’t know, Brazeal is a daughter of Dr. Brailsford R. Brazeal, a native of Montrose, Georgia.  Brazeal served as Dean of Men at Morehouse College for nearly two decades.  As Dean, Brazeal kept a close relationship with his young students and their career choices.

It will be remembered that it was Dr. Brazeal, who took under his wing, a 15-year-old student at Morehouse.  When it came time for the young man to graduate, a difficulty arose when he applied for admission to a seminary to follow in the footsteps of his owner father.  Dr. Brazeal pulled strings with both arms to get the young man into the Crozet Seminary in Pennsylvania. And, as the rest is history as that young man whom Dr. Brazeal get into the ministry, was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr..

Brazeal went on to become a writer of a history of the first Negro Porter unions as well as many articles on politics, including a revealing story on late 1950s politics in Laurens County as it applied to African American voters.

Dr. Brailsford Brazeal and

Ernestine Brazeal 

Aurelia Erskine Brazeal was born in Chicago, Illinois on November 24, 1943.  After she grew up in Atlanta,  Brazeal completed her secondary education at Northfield School for Girls.  Ahwreceived her Bachelor’s Degree from Spelman College and her Master’s Degree from Columbia University before completing her postgraduate study at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University

“My first exposure overseas actually came when I was quite young, when my parents took us, my sister, and myself overseas for family vacation. Later, I attended summer camp in Puerto Rico, which is part of the U.S. but still had students from all over Latin America who came to participate. I was very impressed with the students from Latin America and how they would stand in front of the group and say: "As a future leader of my country I'm here to tell you..."  Brazeal told a writer for the Diversity Abroad organization.

“I remember sitting there thinking to myself that I would not even consider saying that I'm a future leader the United States. This is still back in the early '60's, when we had segregation, as well as upheavals in terms of trying to get equal rights, particularly in the South where I lived. And so I said to myself, "What makes these people tick? What makes these Latin American students at that age believe that they're a future leader of their country?"  With this question on my mind, I became very interested in the culture in Latin America,” Brazeal concluded.

Brazeal first joined the U.S. Foreign Service 1968 as an economic officer in the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs at the Department of State focused on creating relationships and ways to promote a economic and democratic governs in South America and Southeast Asia.

From 1969 to 1971, Brazeal worked as a Consular and Economic Officer in Argentina.  Aurelia spend two years in the State Department’s Economic Bureau and the Department of State Operations Center.

From the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, Brazeal returned to South America to serve  in the U.S. Embassies in Uruguay and Paraguay and Japan.

In 1982 she returned hom to Washington, D.C., and a post with the State Department, which included a terms as Deputy Director for Economics from 1984 to 1986.  Aurelia crossed to the Potomac River to work as a senior  member of the Foreign Service Institute in Arlington, VA

In the late spring of 1990, President George H. W. Bush announced his appointment of Aurelia Brazeal as the Ambassor to the Federated States of Micronesia.  Brazeal became the first U.S. Ambassador to the country, and the first female African American Foreign Service employee to rise to the senior ranks.

President Bill Clinton nominated her to become U.S. Ambassador to racially torn Kenya from 1993 to 1996. 

Brazeal then became Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific, a position she held from 1996 until 1998, and which involved sharing her knowledge of the region with Congress as the U.S. treaty with the Marshall Islands came up for review. In 1998 she became Dean of Senior Seminar and the first Dean of the Leadership and Management School at the Foreign Service Institute, a role she held 2002.

On June 14, 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush announced his intention to nominate Brazeal as U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia, making her the first African American woman ever to be named to the post of U.S. Ambassador by three different presidents. She was confirmed by the Senate and served in Ethiopia until 2005.

From 2005 to 2008, Brazeal served the Senior Foreign Service as Career Minister. At the same time, she held appointments as Distinguished Visiting Ambassador and Diplomat-in-Residence at Howard University. Brazeal retired in 2008, having served for 41 years in the Foreign Service.

Following her retirement Ambassador Brazeal has remained engaged in public service. She has served as President of the Association of Black American Ambassadors (ABAA), and as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs, the Foreign Affairs Council, and the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. She served five terms on the Spelman College Board of Trustees.

Ambassador Aurelia (Rea) Brazeal retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2008, with the rank of Career Minister, after a distinguished 40 year career as an expert in leadership, management, strategic planning, crisis management, economic and trade negotiations and is adept at engaging constructively with disparate audiences and resolving complex problems.  Dr, Brazeal would be proud of his daughter Aurelia. She was a pioneer in being the first to serve in newly created positions and is the first African American woman career Foreign Service officer to be promoted into the Senior Foreign Service and the first to be nominated as an Ambassador.  Daddy would be proud.