John Edward Reinhardt (March 8, 1920 February 18, 2016) was an American ambassador and diplomat. He was the first career diplomat to head the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) and the first Black Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs.
Early life and army service
Reinhardt was born in Glade Spring, Virginia and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee. After graduating from Knoxville College in 1939, he attended the University of Chicago, initially pursuing a graduate degree in English, but did not finish on account to serving in World War II. He taught at Fayetteville State University from 1941 until he was drafted in 1942. He then became a faculty member at Virginia State University. He was the first African American in this position. Reinhardt said that the hardest part of his tour in Nigeria was justifying the U.S. import of chrome from the white separatist state of Rhodesia. He was part of the team that helped Rhodesia shift from white-minority to Black-majority rule. Reinhardt retired from the State Department in 1980.
Reinhardt later was a professor of political science at the University of Vermont from 1987 to 1991. On June 16, 2004 he joined a group of twenty-seven called Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change opposing the Iraq War.
Reinhardt died on February 18, 2016 at the age of 95.