America lost a great diplomat and a brilliant, barrier-breaking woman — and I lost a dear friend — with the death Wednesday of Madeleine Albright, our first female secretary of State.
A proud naturalized American who loved our country and appreciated the blessings of liberty, Albright was born in 1937 in Czechoslovakia and was taken by her parents to London in 1939 to escape invading Nazis. After returning to her homeland following World War II, she fled again with her family in 1948 after Communists backed by the Soviet Union seized power.
I first met Albright when I worked on the Democratic presidential campaign of former Vice President Walter Mondale in 1984. She had already served as a professor of international affairs (she earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University) and on the National Security Council in the administration of President Jimmy Carter.
After Ronald Reagan defeated the Carter-Mondale ticket, Albright went on to become one of Mondale’s key foreign policy advisers when he ran unsuccessfully against President Reagan four years later.
As I got to know her, I was impressed that Albright was like a walking encyclopedia of knowledge about countries in every part of the world. And she was always kind, courteous and caring. She taught me so much — about the world we live in and why it mattered that I understood the need for America to be an inspiration and supporter of democracies around the world.
Throughout her life, Albright paid special attention to mentoring younger women like me coming up behind her. She was determined to see that women had a seat at the table in political campaigns and in government, and was also a champion for Black people to play important roles in foreign policy and not be limited to working on domestic affairs and civil rights issues.
Albright didn’t just hammer away at glass ceilings: She blew them up with dynamite, for herself and the women who followed. As she climbed the career ladder, she pulled other women behind her. One of those women, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, remains at the table.
I worked with Albright again when she was a foreign policy adviser to the presidential campaigns of Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis in 1988 and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton in 1992. After he became president, Clinton made Albright the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 1993 and then secretary of State in 1997.
Albright did an outstanding job in both positions, showing that a woman was more than capable of handling America’s most challenging foreign policy leadership roles. She paved the way for Condoleezza Rice to become secretary of State in 2005 in the George W. Bush administration and Hillary Clinton to become President Barack Obama’s secretary of State in 2009.
So much did Albright normalize the fact that a woman could be secretary of state that she liked to tell the story of her 7-year-old granddaughter remarking after Rice and Clinton headed the State Department: “What’s the big deal about Grandma Maddie having been secretary of State? Only girls are secretary of State.”
On leaving the State Department Albright remained active with many endeavors, including founding her own international consulting firm, teaching at Georgetown University and serving as a director of the Council on Foreign Relations. Until her death, she was chair of the National Democratic Institute, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization that works to strengthen and safeguard democratic institutions around the world. I am privileged to have sat at the table as a member of the board with her.
Albright was a keen analyst of foreign policy almost until the last day of her life, her sharp mind undiminished. She warned us about Russian President Vladimir Putin and other autocrats. In addition to her work as a diplomat and foreign policy scholar, her personal history as a refugee from the Nazis and from Soviet-backed Communists gave her a deep understanding of the dangers of dictators waging wars of aggression.
In a guest essay published by The New York Times on Feb. 23, just a day before Russia invaded Ukraine, she wrote of Putin: “Instead of paving Russia’s path to greatness, invading Ukraine would ensure Mr. Putin’s infamy by leaving his country diplomatically isolated, economically crippled and strategically vulnerable in the face of a stronger, more united Western alliance.” Once again, she proved to be right.
My dear friend Madeleine left us much too soon at 84, succumbing to cancer. When the news broke of her passing, I was in my class at Georgetown University discussing the confirmation hearings of U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson — who was appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee for her confirmation hearing to become the first Black woman and only the sixth woman of any race to serve on the Supreme Court.
For a moment, I wanted to simply stop talking, leave the classroom and compose myself. Instead, I looked around the room at my young students and decided to quickly switch topics from women on the judiciary to women as leaders, women as policymakers and how Madam Secretary worked hard to encourage more women to choose careers in the foreign service.
Donna Brazile is a political strategist, a contributor to ABC News and former chair of the Democratic National Committee. She is the author of “Hacks: Inside the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House.”