Horace Greeley Dawson, Jr. has had and continues to have a distinguished career in education, government, and diplomatic service. In the diplomatic service, he rose to the highest rank – Ambassador Extraordinaire and Plenipotentiary – the position he held as Ambassador to the Republic of Botswana under two U.S. presidents. Ambassador Dawson attended Lincoln University before being drafted into the U.S. Army during his freshman year, serving a two-year tour of duty in Europe and the Philippines. Brother Dawson returned to Lincoln University to finish his studies, earning his A.B. (with honors), and went on to study English and comparative literature at Columbia University and received his M.A. the following year.

Ambassador Dawson began his professional career as an instructor in English at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he remained three years before joining the faculty at North Carolina Central University, where he worked as an associate professor of English and director of public relations, when he resigned in 1963 to join the Foreign Service. He also earned his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 1961 and holds honorary degrees from Lincoln and Howard University, the latter awarded on the recent commencement program with President Barack Obama and Cicely Tyson.

Ambassador Dawson entered the Foreign Service, working as a cultural affairs officer in Uganda and Nigeria, and then as the United States Information Agency Director in Liberia. From 1973 to 1977, he held a prominent position as the director of American information and cultural programs in Africa. Subsequently, he became the counselor of embassy for public affairs and the director of American information and cultural programs in the Philippines, where he remained until 1979. That year, he was named ambassador to Botswana by President Jimmy Carter. As ambassador, he worked to end apartheid in South Africa. Returning to the United States in 1983, he remained with the State Department until his retirement in 1989. He then joined the faculty at Howard University and was appointed director of the public affairs program. In 1993, Brother Dawson established the Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs Center at Howard by writing and securing a $3 million program grant, and in 1997 became the director of that program as well.

Ambassador Dawson is a former member of the Peace Corps Advisory Board, Chairman of the Selection Committee for the Franklin H. Williams Memorial Internship Program of the Council on Foreign Relations, formerly chairman of the Association of Black American Ambassadors, and Chairman Emeritus of the Senior Board Stewards, Metropolitan A.M.E. Church in Washington, D.C. He is listed in Who’s Who in America and several other such publications. He has written extensively on the topics of mass media and international affairs.

In all of the positions he has held, Ambassador Dawson is recognized as a strong advocate for diversity, especially in public service and in international affairs. It is in his role as “a mentor to young men and women of color,” that the University of Iowa recently honored him with its Distinguished Alumni Award for Public Service. Iowa cited as one example, his recruitment for a State Department internship of a young college student named Condoleezza Rice, the 66th U.S. Secretary of State.