August
24, 1950
Edith
Sampson named 1st African American US delegate to UN
Edith Spurlock Sampson
(October 13, 1898 – October 8, 1979) was an American
lawyer and judge, and the first
Black
U.S.
delegate appointed to the United Nations.
President Truman appointed Sampson as an alternate
U.S. delegate to the United Nations in August 1950, making her the first
African-American to officially represent the United States at the UN. She was a
member of the UN's Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural Committee, where she
lobbied for continued support of work in social welfare. She also presented a
resolution pressuring the Soviet Union to repatriate the remainder of its Prisoners
of War from World War II. She was reappointed to the UN in 1952,
and served until 1953. During the Eisenhower Administration, she was a member of
the U.S. Commission for UNESCO. In 1961 and 1962, she became the first black U.S.
representative to NATO
Sampson was one of eight children born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
U.S.
to Louis Spurlock and Elizabeth A. McGruder. She left school at 14 due to
family financial difficulties, and found a job cleaning and deboning fish at a
market. She later returned to school and graduated
from Peabody High School in
Pittsburgh. She then went to work for Associated Charities, and studied at the New York School of Social Work. One
of her instructors, George Kirchwey of Columbia, encouraged her to become an attorney.
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