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Howard Franklin Jeter
Howard Franklin Jeter (born March 6, 1947 in Maple Ridge, Union County, South Carolina) is a career diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Botswana from 1993 to 1996 and United States Ambassador to Nigeria from 2000 to 2003.

Howard Jeter was born to James Walter Jeter, Jr. and Emma Mattocks Jeter in Maple Ridge, South Carolina in 1947. He first attended school in a one-room schoolhouse that had no electricity, heat, or indoor plumbing. In high school, Jeter played the clarinet and drums in the school band and was in the drama club. He graduated from Sims High School in Union, SC, in 1964 as the class valedictorian.

Jeter attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, where he majored in political science and minored in economics and French. At Morehouse, he received a Merrill Study Travel Fellowship through the Institute of European Studies that allowed him to study for a year at the Institute of Studies Pierre in Nantes, France. Jeter’s participation in the program encouraged his interests in a career in international relations. After graduating from Morehouse in 1970, he completed two master's degrees: a Master’s in International Relations and Comparative Politics from Columbia University and a Master’s in African Area Studies at UCLA.

Jeter's first overseas assignment in the U.S. Foreign Service was in Maputo, Mozambique in 1979. He also served in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and in Lesotho. Jeter served as Deputy Chief of Mission and Charge d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Windhoek, Namibia, from September 1990 to July 1993.

Jeter was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Botswana in 1993 by President Bill Clinton. Then, in July 1996, President Clinton appointed Jeter as a special envoy to Liberia. Returning to Washington, DC, he served as the U.S. State Department’s Director of West African Affairs from September 1997 to June 1999. From June 1999 to July 2000, Jeter was Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs.

President Clinton next appointed him to be U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, serving in Abuja from 2000 to 2003. Ambassador Jeter retired in 2003 after 27 years of service to the State Department.

He is a former Ford Foundation Doctoral Fellow, International Fellow at Columbia University, Legislative Intern in the Georgia House of Representatives, and a participant in Operation Crossroads Africa.

Ambassador Jeter has served as chair of the selection panel for the Charles B. Rangel International Affairs Fellowship Program. He also has served as a board member of Africare, the Morehouse College Andrew Young Center for International Affairs, and the Florida A&M University International Advisory Board. He is former President and CEO of the Leon H. Sullivan Foundation and he was Executive Vice President of GoodWorks International, LLC.

In recognition of his Foreign Service career, Ambassador Jeter has received a Presidential Meritorious Award, the U.S. State Department Superior Awards, Senior Foreign Service Performance Awards, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition International Peace and Justice Award, and the Bennie Trailblazer Award from Morehouse College.