Education
Boston University School of Law.
Boston University School of Law.
He also became the first black Foreign Service Officer to become chief of a diplomatic mission, and simultaneously the first black chief of a diplomatic mission to a European nation. Born in Baltimore, Wharton received his law degree in 1920 and an advanced law degree in 1923 from Boston University School of Law. He practiced in Boston before joining the United States State Department as a law clerk in the Career United States Foreign Service.
Wharton went on to be Vice Consul in Monrovia (1927–1929), Consul in Las Palmas (1932–1938), Minister to Romania (1958–1961) and Ambassador to Norway (1961–1964).
Wharton died in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1978, the State Department had a day honoring him and diplomat Lucile Atcherson Curtis, who was the first woman in what became the United States. Foreign Service.
On May 30, 2006, the United States Postal Service issued a stamp depicting Wharton in its Distinguished American Diplomats commemorative series.
Wharton was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.