Diplomat with many hats joins hall

As a mentor, June Carter-Perry dishes plenty of advice to what she calls her "cadre of young people" who stay in touch with her.

"Seek every opportunity; don't give up. Do your best .... Be sure to be as committed and outstanding as you can be.

"And know and adhere to the basic values and principles of the United States, wherever you are."

Fitting words for a woman who has distinguished herself in interlocking careers as an educator, journalist, public servant and, most notably, diplomat.

The former U.S. ambassador to Lesotho and Sierra Leone is among six who will be inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame during a benefit gala whose activities begin at 6 p.m. Saturday in the Wally Allen Ballroom of the Statehouse Convention Center. Proceeds will benefit nonprofit Arkansas organizations that serve black communities.

Other 2016 inductees are:

• Fort Smith native Gregory A. Davis Sr., chief executive officer and president of Davis Broadcasting Inc. in Columbus, Ga., and Atlanta.

• Knoxie Hall Sr. and Estella Marie Crenshaw Hall (the Hall Family), founders and operators of K. Hall and Sons Produce and K. Hall and Sons Enterprises Inc., Little Rock.

• Richard L. Mays Sr., a former state Supreme Court justice, former state legislator and founding partner of Mays, Byrd & Associates.

• Cynthia Scott, jazz recording artist and El Dorado native.

• The late Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, a Little Rock businessman and the first elected black municipal judge in the United States.

ARKANSAS ROOTS

Carter-Perry, a 72-year-old mother of two and grandmother of three, lives in Chevy Chase, Md., but was born in Texarkana. As a young child she lived in Pine Bluff, where her father, Bishop Wadsworth Carter (also a teacher and band leader) worked. After her parents' divorce in 1946, Carter-Perry lived on Texarkana's Texas side with her mother, Louise Pendleton Carter, a high school teacher, and her grandfather.

In the early 1950s, Carter-Perry moved with her mother to Chicago. She earned a degree in history from Loyola University in 1965 and a master's degree in European history at the University of Chicago in 1967. In 1968 -- after teaching at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University -- she married Frederick M. Perry and went to Saipan, Micronesia, where her husband served as director of economic programs for the Office of Economic Opportunity) and she taught high school. The couple returned to the United States in 1969, and Carter-Perry taught at the University of Maryland at College Park.

The couple left again for a stint in Guyana, where Perry was appointed as Peace Corps director, and Malaysia, where he was deputy director. Their return to the United States marked a career switch for Carter-Perry, who in 1972 began working as public affairs director at Washington's then-WGMS classical radio station.

Carter-Perry in 1976 became head of the Peace Corps' public affairs office at the agency's Washington headquarters. She also worked with the larger agency, Action, of which the Corps and Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) became a part. Carter-Perry stayed with Action until the end of 1982, when Perry was recruited to join the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

"We had two young boys [Chad and Andre] and I said ... 'I've got to get into the State Department so we can keep our family together,'" she recalls.

Her State Department career began in 1983, first in Zambia, where she accompanied her husband; then Zimbabwe. "We were commuting back and forth on the Zimbabwe Road" between the two countries, Carter-Perry says.

In 1987, the family returned to Washington, where Carter-Perry worked in the Office of Southern African Affairs at the USAID. She established a scholarship for nonwhite South Africans, which, she says, "became a permanent part of our education program in South Africa. I consider that to be my best achievement ... because it lasted forever. We had young people we knew were going to have to run the country when apartheid came to an end, and they ended up in various universities throughout the United States."

In 1995, Carter-Perry was asked to be deputy chief of mission to the Central African Republic. About a month after taking that post, she recalls, a civil war broke out.

"We ended up having to evacuate all nonessential personnel." She was in the No. 2 position, however, and was considered essential. "We were literally stretched out on the floor at night while these guns were going off, and managed to live through that military crisis.

"Things were quiet for a little while. And then there was an outbreak again between the military and the government."

MADAM AMBASSADOR

Carter-Perry found herself back in Washington preparing papers for Susan Rice, National Security Advisor, before being asked to become deputy chief of mission to Madagascar. In 2004 she was asked to become ambassador to Lesotho. During those three years, "we were fortunately able to obtain a grant of almost $4 million from the Millennium Challenge Corp. to improve the health system [and] water system throughout the country." It was, she says, "a very rewarding time."

She was planning to retire when she got a call from then-Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, who wanted her to serve as ambassador to Sierra Leona.

One of Carter-Perry's key goals there was to get the Peace Corps back into Sierra Leone, which at that time was suffering the aftereffects of war. Carter-Perry was able to establish a working relationship between the Peace Corps and the Sierra Leone government. After back problems forced an abrupt return to Washington for medical care, she handled matters through her deputy. She retired in January 2010 and re-donned her educator hat, teaching at several campuses of higher learning. In 2011-2012, she was the second woman and the first black Cyrus Vance Visiting Professor in International Relations at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass.

"I consider that ... a hallmark in my career," she says.

Her name graces several Who's Who lists. She also is a member of the Federal City Alumnae chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc.; the Council on Foreign Relations; and the Association of Black American Ambassadors; and is a charter member of the new Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture. Dedicating herself to getting more young people to take the Foreign Service exam, she also developed the Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship Program, which helps students prepare for a career in the U.S. Department of State Foreign Service.

How did she react to the invitation to induction into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame?

"I was shocked and surprised" to be invited, Carter-Perry says. "I ... felt that it was a tremendous honor."

Style on 10/23/2016