Susan Rice was the first African-American woman to be a US ambassador to the United Nations. An Oxford-graduate, what made it possible for her to travel across the Pond (as the North Atlantic Ocean is irreverently referred to) was a Rhodes Scholarship.
In fact, this scholarship was denied to black people for long until protests emerged in the 1970s. The irony is that Cecil Rhodes, a South African mining magnate who established the scholarship in 1902 was himself a white supremacist. Yet, few will doubt that any student would give an arm and a leg to be awarded such a prestigious scholarship which has outlived the taints of its founder.
Other American recipients include Bill Clinton, a president who enjoyed a great following among the black community and the former Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Neither could be faulted even remotely for condoning racism by accepting the scholarship that opened the doors for Oxford for them.