Because the hospitals in his home town, East St. Louis, Illinois, were segregated, Donald McHenry was born in St. Louis, Missouri on October 13, 1936.
He was appointed US Ambassador to the United Nations by Jimmy Carter, a position he held from 1979 to 1981.
President Bill Clinton appointed McHenry as Special Envoy to Nigeria from 1994 to 1996.
In 1998, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan selected Ambassador McHenry to travel to Algeria to gather information on violence erupting in that country.
