AFSA Award Acceptance Speech
Linda Thomas-Greenfield – October 1, 2025
Amb. Bodine, Dean Hellman, President Dinkelman, Awardees, Guest, Friends and Family,
let me start by offering my deepest gratitude to the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) for recognizing me with this prestigious award. And I thank you for your service to the State Department and for supporting the Foreign Service. In good times and bad, AFSA has always had our backs.
My special thanks to Georgetown University, where many, but not all, of our best and brightest began their journeys. You have become our home away from home—a place we can always convene as a community, even when the Department turns its back on us.
Thank you to my many colleagues and friends who are here to support and celebrate with me. I am honored and deeply grateful. My family is also here: my siblings from Louisiana who still invite me to gumbo cook offs and barbecues despite my living abroad for most of my adult life. Perhaps the biggest thank you is for my family: Lafayette, Lindsay and Deuce—you have always been there when I needed it the most.
My daughter Lindsay traveled alone with her dad at 8 months old to Lagos, Nigeria while I stayed behind to finish training. My son Deuce took his first plane ride at 6 weeks old to Banjul, The Gambia, where he spoke his first words in Wolof. My children have given me the greatest gift of all, my three adorable grandchildren, Lydia, Luca, and Lola. Did you notice, we are all L’s? My final thank you is for my husband, Lafayette, who joined the State Department before I did and also has a lifetime of service. We met many decades ago in Monrovia, Liberia, and you have been by my side ever since. I simply would not be here without your love and support, so, thank you. I dedicate this award to him.
Colleagues and friends, while I am honored to receive this award, it is bittersweet. I will admit that I am deeply saddened that we were denied the use of the Ben Franklin Room—the very place where I, and so many others, were sworn into the Foreign Service– for this ceremony. That said, the Department and its employees will always be in my heart.
Over 40 years ago in 1982, I started my career as a consular officer in Kingston, Jamaica. At that point, I never could have imagined that I would go on to serve as President Biden’s Ambassador to the United Nations and in his own words as: “America’s voice to the world”.
My life story gave no hint of this. I grew up in the segregated rural South, the oldest of eight children to hardworking but poor parents. As one of my brothers liked to say, we were so poor we only had one ‘O’ in poor. But yet, despite the odds and unlikeliness of it, I have had the opportunity to represent our nation, our culture, and our values to the world.
Over the course of my career, I have worked for six presidents, both Republican and Democrat, as Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, as Ambassador to Liberia and the United Nations, and very proudly, I might add, as Director General. Along the way, I have been surrounded by extraordinary colleagues—people who, like me, were driven by a shared commitment to improve lives and to make a difference, one act of kindness or cable at a time.
My journey has taken me around the world. From presidential offices, to remote refugee camps and war zones. Every person I have met, in every role, left an indelible mark on me, just as I hope, in some small way, I was able to leave a mark on them. Four decades of negotiations and advocacy, problem-solving and collaboration have taught me key lessons—five of which I would like to share with you today.
First, when I joined the State Department, I thought I could change the world. Over time, I learned that no one can change the world alone—but each of us has the power to change lives, one conversation, one act of kindness, and one step at a time. I came to understand this truth most clearly through my work in refugee camps where I engaged with people, no different from you and me, who were living in dire and devastating circumstances.
Not long ago, on a side street in Arlington, Virginia, a young Sudanese man who I did not recognize, stopped me to say I was the person who made it possible for him to leave Kakuma, a refugee camp in northern Kenya, and begin anew in the United States.
I still think about the transformative impact this work, not this duty, had on their lives, and how the United States has benefited from their contributions to this nation.
Second, I learned not to take myself too seriously. People may not think you are as talented as you think you are. But through your hard work and dedication to values, you might just prove that you are. So take your work seriously, not yourselves.
Third, mentor, mentor, mentor. When you make it up the ladder of success, give a hand to someone else striving to be where you are today. We all stand on the shoulders of giants.
One I will never forget is Ambassador Ed Perkins who in 1985 brought me under his mentorship after being his control officer in Nigeria. This led me to an assignment as his staff assistant in the Office of the Director General where I would years later follow in his footsteps and serve as the Director General. His mentorship and guidance not only laid the foundation of my career, but helped me realize I had my own potential. Looking back at it, Ambassador Perkins and I had three of the same positions: Director General, an Ambassadorship to Liberia, and ultimately both of us served as Ambassador to the United Nations.
Fourth, be kind, be compassionate, and be good to people. As the wise Maya Angelou pointedly said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Being kind to others has become the secret sauce to my “gumbo diplomacy,” and I have learned that treating people well matters—it is what will outlive the work we do. Finally, and most importantly, diplomacy matters. War, threats, and violence are never the answer. Dialogue, deliberation, and discussion are. We don’t always have to agree and we don’t always succeed—but we cannot stop trying. We cannot give up. We cannot quit.
It is precisely through our diplomatic efforts that American leadership matters, shaping a world that respects human rights, celebrates diversity, and commits to the principles of multilateralism. Behind all these efforts are our diplomats. It is not only the giants of diplomacy—such as John Foster Dulles, Ralph Bunche, Ed Perkins, Madeleine Albright, Richard Holbrooke, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton, and Bill Burns, to name a few—whose vision and commitment to peaceful diplomacy have shaped the world and American leadership.
But also, the thousands of colleagues from the State Department and USAID who tirelessly devote their lives, day in and day out, at home and abroad, to the practice of American diplomacy. This includes the many colleagues I served with and learned from, that are no longer with the Department because of reckless and cruel Reductions in Force and today’s government shutdown. I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the many who gave their lives for our country while serving abroad in our Embassies, Consulates, and Missions. Those in Kenya and Tanzania after the bombings in 1998, and Ambassador Chris Stevens in Libya in 2012. Those lives recognized in memorials at the State Department, the CIA, and formerly at the USAID Headquarters.
Colleagues, we all swore our allegiance to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Reflecting on that first oath I took over 40 years ago and again in 2021 when I was sworn in as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, I am reminded that I pledged my allegiance to our country and its values, and not to a person. This is a duty that I carry for life.This award stands as a testament to an eternal truth: that diplomacy matters— every conversation, every negotiation, every act of service carries immense power. Let me close by reminding you all that you have immense power.
Let me end where I started: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you
