About Me
A Brief Overview of Condoleezza's Early life before her rise to fame.
Credits: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condoleezza_Rice
Rice was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and grew up in the neighborhood of Titusville. She is the only child of Presbyterian minister Reverend John Wesley Rice, Jr., and his wife, the former Angelena Ray. Reverend Rice was a guidance counselor at Ullman High School and minister of Westminster Presbyterian Church, which had been founded by her father. Angelena was a science, music and oratory teacher at Ullman.
Condoleezza (whose name is derived from the Italian musical expression, Con dolcezza, which means "with sweetness") experienced firsthand the injustices of Birmingham's discriminatory laws and attitudes. She was instructed to walk proudly in public and to use the facilities at home rather than subject herself to the indignity of "colored" facilities in town. As Rice recalls of her parents and their peers, "they refused to allow the limits and injustices of their time to limit our horizons.â€
However, Rice recalls various times in which she suffered discrimination and persecution on account of her skin color, which include being relegated to a storage room at a department store instead of a regular dressing room, being barred from going to the circus or the local amusement park, being denied hotel rooms, and even being given bad food at restaurants. Also, while Condoleezza was mostly kept by her parents from areas where she might face discrimination, she was very aware of the civil rights struggle and the problems of Jim Crow Birmingham. Says neighbor Juliemma Smith, "[Condi] used to call me and say things like, 'Did you see what Bull Connor did today?' She was just a little girl and she did that all the time. I would have to read the newspaper thoroughly because I wouldn’t know what she was going to talk about." Rice herself said of the segregation era: "Those terrible events burned into my consciousness. I missed many days at my segregated school because of the frequent bomb threats."
During the violent days of the Civil Rights Movement, Reverend Rice armed himself and kept guard over the house while Condoleezza practiced the piano inside. According to J.L. Chestnut, Reverend Rice called local civil rights leader Fred Shuttlesworth and his followers' activism as "misguided." Also, Reverend Rice instilled in his daughter and students that black people would have to prove themselves worthy of advancement, and would simply have to be "twice as good" to overcome injustices built into the system. While the Rices supported the goals of the civil rights movement, they did not agree with some of the tactics that activists had utilized, which included putting children in harm's way.
Rice was eight when her schoolmate Denise McNair was killed in the bombing of the primarily African American Sixteenth Street Baptist Church by white supremacists on September 15, 1963. Rice has commented upon that moment in her life:
"I remember the bombing of that Sunday School at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963. I did not see it happen, but I heard it happen, and I felt it happen, just a few blocks away at my father’s church. It is a sound that I will never forget, that will forever reverberate in my ears. That bomb took the lives of four young girls, including my friend and playmate, Denise McNair. The crime was calculated to suck the hope out of young lives, bury their aspirations. But those fears were not propelled forward, those terrorists failed."
– Condoleezza Rice, Commencement 2004, Vanderbilt University, May 13, 2004
Rice states that growing up during racial segregation taught her determination against adversity, and the need to be "twice as good" as non-minorities. Segregation also hardened her stance on the right to bear arms; Rice has said in interviews that if gun registration had been mandatory, her father's weapons would have been confiscated, leaving them defenseless against Ku Klux Klan nightriders.
Rice started learning French, music, figure skating and ballet at age three. At age 15, she began classes with the goal of becoming a concert pianist. Her plans changed when she realized that she did not play well enough to support herself through music alone. She said that her playing was "pretty good but not great," and that she did not have enough time to devote to practice. While Rice is not a professional pianist, she still practices often and plays with a chamber music group.
Rice made use of her pianist training to accompany cellist Yo-Yo Ma for Brahms's Violin Sonata in D Minor at Constitution Hall in April 2002 for the National Medal of Arts Awards. Rice also performed Brahms's Sonata in D Minor, 2nd Movement, with famed Malaysian violinist Mustafa Fuzer Nawi (conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra) at the Gala Dinner of the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on July 27, 2006.[10] She has also played Glenn Gould's piano while meeting with Michaëlle Jean, the Governor General of Canada, at Rideau Hall on October 25, 2005, and she gave a sampling of her musical talent for Katie Couric on the 60 Minutes season premiere in 2006.
In 1967, the family moved to Denver in Colorado when her father accepted an administrative position at the University of Denver. She attended St. Mary's Academy, a private all-girls Catholic high school in Cherry Hills Village, Colorado.
After studying piano at the Aspen Music Festival and School, Rice enrolled at the University of Denver, where her father both served as an assistant dean and taught a class called "The Black Experience in America." Dean John Rice was extremely opposed to institutional racism and government oppression and was a vocal protester of the Vietnam War.
Rice attended a course on international politics taught by Josef Korbel, the father of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. This experience sparked her interest in the Soviet Union and international relations and made her call Korbel "one of the most central figures in my life."
Rice graduated from St. Mary's Academy in 1970. In 1974, at age 19, Rice earned her B.A. in political science and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Denver. In 1975, she obtained her Master's Degree in political science from the University of Notre Dame. She first worked in the State Department in 1977, during the Carter administration, as an intern in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. In 1981, at the age of 26, she received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the Graduate School of International Studies at Denver. In addition to English, she speaks fluent Russian, and, with varying degrees of fluency, German, French, and Spanish.
Rice was a Democrat until 1982 when she changed her political affiliation to Republican after growing averse to former President Carter's foreign policy. She also cited influence from her father, John Wesley, in this decision, who himself switched from Democrat to Republican after being denied voting registration by the Democratic Party of Alabama.
Rice is unmarried, but dated professional football player Rick Upchurch while attending the University of Denver.[16] In September 2006, The New York Times reported on gossip about her involvement with Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter MacKay.
Key details about National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice:
NAME: Condoleezza Rice.
AGE-BIRTH DATE: 50; Nov. 14, 1954.
BIRTHPLACE: Birmingham, Ala.
EDUCATION: Bachelor of arts, political science, University of Denver, 1974; master of arts, University of Notre Dame, 1975; Ph.D., Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver, 1981.
EXPERIENCE: National security adviser, National Security Council, 2001-present; Hoover Senior Fellow and professor of political science, Stanford University, 1981-1999; provost, Stanford University, 1993-99; director-senior director, Soviet and East European Affairs, National Security Council, special assistant to the president for national security affairs, 1989-1991; special assistant to the director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1986.
BOOKS: Co-author, "Germany Unified and Europe Transformed," 1995; co-author, "The Gorbachev Era," 1986; author, "Uncertain Allegiance — The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army," 1984.
FAMILY: Single.
QUOTE: "Knowing what we know about the difficulties of our own history, knowing the history of Alabama and Mississippi and Tennessee, we should be humble in singing freedom's praise, but our voice should never waiver in speaking out on the side of those who seek freedom." — Commencement Speech at Vanderbilt University, May 13, 2004.
