Video Transcript

Bernard F. Coleman—Entering the USIA Foreign Service in the 1950s:

I had asked every black that was closely connected with the State Department, “How do you get a job in there?”  And not one would tell me how.  So one day I came across 17th and Pennsylvania Avenue, and USIA was on the corner of 17th and Pennsylvania Avenue.  And a guy popped out of there.  And I said, “You work in there?”  And he said, “Yeah.”  And I said, “How do you get a job here?”  And he said, “Why don’t you put in an application?”   So I put in an application for employment, and I heard no more from him.

(Question: Was this a black fellow?)

Yeah, he was black.  I had never seen him before.  I just asked him if he worked there.  And he said, “Yeah.”  Subsequently, I went to work for him.  So I went in and filled out an application, and I didn’t hear any more from them. 

A year later I got called to come take an exam.  I’m still working at Goodwill Industries.  When I came home, my father, who always looked at the people in the government as something special, he said, “The government people called you today.”  I said, “What government people?”  He said, “Some people down town.”  I said, “Who were they, Dad?  You got the telephone number?”  He said, “Yeah,” and he gave me the telephone number, which I immediately called.  And it was USIA.  And there was a black girl on there, and she said, “You were due here today for an examination.”  And I said, “Did you send me a letter.  Have you called here?”  And there was a dead silence.  She hadn’t done either one.  She said, “Can you come tomorrow?”  I said, “What time?”  And she said, “8:30.”  I said, “I’ll be there.”  And 8:30 I was there.  Now the surprising thing about it – that only one-day notice.  I got in at 5:30 in the evening and I’m there at 8:30 the next morning.

And I walked in there at 8:30 in the morning, and these three guys came in behind me and sat down, and they said, “Mr. Coleman, this is your examination for the Foreign Service.”  I said, “Yes.”  And he introduced the members of the panel, three of them.  Then he said, “Mr. Coleman, who was Jackson Pollack?”  And I said, “Jackson Pollack was an artist who dripped paint on canvas.  He did huge canvases and he was killed on the Boston post road in the sports miler car that his girl friend gave him.”  And the next man said, “Who was Vachel Lindsey?”  I told him. Then he asked me who Carl Sandburg was.  And I told him who Carl Sandburg was.  The guy on the end said, “Mr. Coleman, who is Frank Lloyd Wright?”  And I said, “Frank Lloyd Wright, at this moment, is experimenting with a mile-high building.”  He said, “Can you give an example of his work?”  And I said, “Yeah, the Robie House in Chicago.”