[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 89 (Tuesday, July 11, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1377-E1378]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         IN TRIBUTE TO ANNE FORRESTER, ACTIVIST AND AMBASSADOR

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 11, 2006

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Anne 
Forrester, a tireless advocate who gave her life so that others could 
understand and appreciate the freedoms we exercise daily in America. 
Ambassador Anne Forrester, who served our Nation as head of the office 
of Ambassador Andrew Young in the Department of State and then as 
Ambassador to Mali during the administration of Jimmy Carter, succumbed 
to pancreatic cancer on June 23, 2006 at her home in New York City. She 
was memorialized at a service at the National Cathedral in Washington 
on Saturday, July 8, 2006. A woman of sound moral character and grace, 
Anne Forrester lived for others and irreversibly changed everyone she 
met.
  Born in Philadelphia in 1941, to a widowed social worker in a country 
very divided among race lines, Mrs. Forrester knew from experience what 
it felt to be denied, pushed aside and undervalued. She was a woman, a 
colored woman with an intellect and courage that extended beyond her 
small delicate frame. However, despite all of these challenges, she 
became a pioneer being among one of the first African American women 
appointed to serve as a United States Ambassador.
  Mrs. Forrester is noted not only as one of the first African American 
women appointed to ambassadorship in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter to 
Mali but for her contributions to the great movements of the 1960s and 
1970s, the struggle for the attainment of civil rights and the 
resistance to the folly of our engagement in Vietnam. She channeled her 
displeasure with America's domestic policies to produce change in 
government through direct action. Later in her career, Anne became the 
staff director of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa. Her 
desire to share the hard-won freedoms gained by blacks in America with 
those in Africa laid the groundwork for a career of service to the 
people of Africa which replicated her commitment to equality and 
justice for Blacks in the U.S.
  Mrs. Forrester had a special relationship with the continent of 
Africa. As a young child, she vividly recalled various pleas from 
missionaries in her church describing a world and place she would later 
explain and describe in her own words and from her own personal 
experience. As a student in Bennington College in Vermont, Mrs. 
Forrester in 1962 made her first trip to Africa, traveling to Uganda 
with a summer cultural exchange program. She later earned her Masters 
Degree in African Studies from Howard University in 1968 and her Ph.D 
from the Union Institute & University in Cincinnati in 1975.
  Ambassador Forrester served as a Resident Representative of the 
United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Her work for the U.N. was 
exemplary, exhibiting the true qualities of a humble yet determined 
civil servant. As an official observer for the U.N., Mrs. Forrester 
traveled abroad to a variety of locales. Also as a mother and advocate 
for reform and peace, Mrs. Forrester was a doer whose work in the 
U.N.'s regional bureau for Africa under Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, now 
President of Liberia and as a guest scholar at the Smithsonian 
Institution's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars garnered 
a lot of praise and attention.
  We all mourn the loss of such a true pioneer, who took positions and 
voiced her opinion at times when voices of opposition were not 
welcomed. What I hope people will gain from her life is that anything 
is truly possible and that you can aspire to achieve no matter how dire 
the situation or circumstances. Her selfless acts should be remembered 
and praised.
  I enter into the Congressional Record to illustrate to my colleagues 
Anne's special qualities the obituary published in the Post on July 3, 
2006 which provides an insight into Anne Forrester's humanitarian 
efforts and accomplishments. She has truly left her mark on our society 
and she will always be remembered for that. We must keep her memory 
alive in our hearts and minds so that generations after us will know 
who she was and what she did. One will not be able to speak about the 
progress made in the struggle of people of color during the 1960's and 
1970's for civil rights and equality of opportunity in the U.S. and for 
self determination and freedom in Africa and the Caribbean without 
bringing up her name, for she has without a doubt made great 
contributions to both areas.

                [From the Washington Post, July 3, 2006]

                   Anne Forrester, Ambassador to Mali

                         (By Patricia Sullivan)

       Anne Forrester, 65, former ambassador to Mali who had an 
     abiding professional interest in Africa and the African 
     diaspora, died of pancreatic cancer June 23 at her home in 
     New York City.
       Ms. Forrester was appointed to the ambassadorship in 1979 
     by President Jimmy Carter and was one of the first African 
     American women to hold the post. A scholar and activist in 
     the 1960s, she made the transition into a position of power 
     in government and diplomacy.
       ``What I represent is the generation that learned 
     traditional values in the 1950s, was

[[Page E1378]]

     cast into turbulent changes in the 1960s, learned a new 
     vocabulary and had to integrate the changes,'' she told The 
     Washington Post in 1979.
       Ms. Forrester served as ambassador until 1981, then 
     returned to Washington to work as staff director for the 
     House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, where she laid 
     the groundwork for the anti-apartheid bill that passed 
     Congress in 1986.
       She helped Randall Robinson as he launched the TransAfrica 
     Forum, which lobbies on African issues. Ms. Forrester joined 
     the United Nations staff in 1985, a decade after working as 
     staff director for Andrew Young at the State Department, when 
     he was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
       A small, delicate woman who joked about her reputation as a 
     forceful advocate, Ms. Forrester carried memories of 
     segregation and civil rights fights with her into the 
     rulebound world of diplomacy. Born in Philadelphia to a 
     widowed social worker, she attended public schools and 
     remembered sitting in Philadelphia's historic St. Thomas 
     Episcopal Church, listening to the pleas for missionaries in 
     Africa.
       ``Knowledge of Africa, from a positive and enriching 
     approach, was very evident in our home,'' she said.
       She was bright and left home early to attend the majority-
     white Northfield Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts. She 
     also graduated from Bennington College in Vermont.
       In 1962, she made her first trip to Africa, traveling to 
     Uganda with a summer cultural-exchange program, Operation 
     Crossroads Africa. She taught at her old prep school for a 
     few years, then, seeking an experience in a majority-black 
     environment, moved to Washington to work on a master's degree 
     in African studies at Howard University, which she received 
     in 1968.
       She met and married Marvin Holloway, and they became 
     involved in Washington's Drum and Spear Bookstore and Press, 
     a center of black nationalist activism.
       During this period, she directed the Black Student Fund; 
     worked part time for Young, then a Democratic member of the 
     House from Georgia; started her doctoral work that culminated 
     in a 1975 degree from Union Institute & University in 
     Cincinnati; was an official observer at a U.N. conference; 
     and traveled abroad a couple of times, all while her twin 
     girls were going through their ``terrible twos.''
       She ran Young's State Department office when he was the 
     U.N. ambassador, successfully finding her way through the 
     labyrinths of Foggy Bottom diplomacy. After her 
     ambassadorship and work on Capitol Hill, she became a guest 
     scholar at the Smithsonian Institution's Woodrow Wilson 
     International Center for Scholars and an adjunct professor in 
     the African studies department at Georgetown University.
       Her work for the U.N. Development Program took her to 
     Lesotho and Ghana and later to Barbados and the eastern 
     Caribbean. She worked in the U.N. regional bureau for Africa 
     under Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, now president of Liberia. Ms. 
     Forrester became a senior adviser to the administrator in 
     charge of launching the U.N. Foundation and in her first year 
     raised $20 million.
       Ms. Forrester retired from the United Nations in October 
     2001 but continued to work as senior policy adviser on 
     Africa, Afghanistan and HIV-AIDS matters for Rep. Juanita 
     Millender-McDonald (D-Calif.) for a year. She returned to New 
     York and continued to work as an international consultant on 
     African and Caribbean development issues.
       Her marriage ended in divorce.
       Survivors include two daughters, Camara Holloway of New 
     York and Kandia Holloway of Charlotte, N.C.