Condelisa rice biography

Martin Luther King Jr. Nikki Giovanni. Malcolm X. Kamala Harris. Donald Glover. Differences can be a strength rather than a handicap. I never wanted to run for anything. I don't think I even ran for class anything in school. I'm enough of an historian to know that my reputation will be what my reputation is. It might be different in five months from five years to 50 years, and so I'm simply not going to worry about that.

I think September 11th was one of those great earthquakes that clarify and sharpen. Events are in much sharper relief. People may oppose you, but when they realize you can hurt them, they'll join your side. We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. This became an important part of her job on the morning of September 11, She was in a meeting at the White House when an aide notified her that a plane had struck the World Trade Center.

She quickly ended the meeting and notified the President, who was in Florida. After a second plane crashed into the other tower of the New York landmark, she and other key personnel gathered in what is known as the White House "Situation Room. Armed Forces, Rice and the others retreated to an underground bunker. The attack was the deadliest ever to occur on American soil.

Rice worked long days in the months afterward to shape U. The first order of business involved Afghanistan, which was suspected of harboring the shadowy Islamic fundamentalist group known as Al Qaeda. Less than a month later, U. Rice also worked to create a new policy for dealing with longtime Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein —. The Bush White House believed that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that could be used against the United States.

In March of the United States invaded Iraq. The fourth year of the Bush Administration was a difficult one for Rice and other top White House and Pentagon personnel. Though Hussein had been captured and the war in Iraq was officially declared over, U. And American military operatives had yet to capture bin Laden. There were charges that U.

Rice lives in a luxury apartment complex in Washington known as Watergate. Her mother died in , and her father died the same month that Bush named her to the national security adviser post. She attends church regularly, and is known to be close to the President and his wife, Laura —. At the Maryland presidential retreat known as Camp David , she has been known to watch hours of televised sports with President Bush.

Both are dedicated football fans, and Rice has also been known to spend an entire day on her own watching college and pro football games. Rice's name has been mentioned as a possible future vice-presidential candidate. Although she has joked that she would love to serve as commissioner of the National Football League, she has also said that she looks forward to returning to teaching once her service to the Bush White House comes to an end.

When that happens, I think I've done for them what Dr. Korbel did for me. Bumiller, Elisabeth. Lemann, Nicholas. National-Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. Lewis, Neil A. Oppel, Richard A. Wilkerson, Isabel. Winfrey, Oprah. The O Interview. C ondoleezza Rice was America's top advisor on the Soviet Union during the administration of President George Bush —; served —93; see entry , helping to write U.

The Cold War was an intense political and economic rivalry from to between the United States and the Soviet Union , falling just short of military conflict. For her part, Rice said she felt fortunate to have been given the chance to help shape America's response to these extraordinary events. Rice was front and center at one of the most historic scenes in modern political history—the end of the Cold War era: In , the Soviet Union broke apart and relations between the United States and the Soviets normalized.

Returning to Washington, D. Bush —; served — , Rice took on the role of national security advisor, the chief foreign policy advisor to the president. Her father called her his "little star" and worked very hard to give her every advantage. An ordained Presbyterian minister, he also worked as a teacher, coach, and guidance counselor. Her mother was a teacher and a pianist.

She named her daughter after an Italian musical term, con dolcezza —"to play with sweetness. Her education began in her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. It was evident early on that she was a high achiever, and she rose to any challenge. She excelled both in academics and in the arts. Under the guidance of her educator parents, she skipped first and seventh grades.

After her father moved the family to Denver, Colorado, Rice decided to take college courses while still in high school. She enrolled at the University of Denver at the age of fifteen. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in political science cum laude with honors in when she was nineteen. Both of her advanced degrees were also in political science.

After graduation, Rice went to work at Stanford University as a Soviet expert on the political science faculty. She was twenty-six years old at the time. Condoleezza Rice was born at a time when her country was dealing with civil rights on a national level and the Cold War on an international level. Civil rights are personal liberties that belong to an individual such as freedom of speech and freedom from discrimination.

A descendent of black Americans from the South , Rice was raised in Titusville, a middle-class suburb of black professionals in Birmingham, Alabama. In the s and s, Birmingham was the most racially segregated city in the South and was a focal point of the civil rights movement. Efforts to achieve civil rights often resulted in violence. On September 15, , a bomb killed four young girls while they were attending church at the 16th Street Baptist Church.

Eleven-year-old Denise McNair was the youngest who died. She had attended kindergarten with young Condoleezza. A group called "nightriders" came out at night to start fires or hide bombs in the segregated black neighborhoods. Rice's father was one of the men who took to the neighborhood streets with a shotgun to protect their families.

Even though her parents could not sit down to eat at the local Woolworth's counter, they wanted their daughter to believe she could one day be U. In , when Rice was eleven, her father took her to Washington, D. Even though at the time most blacks were not allowed to vote, according to Antonia Felix's Condi: The Condoleezza Rice Story, she told her father, "One day, I'll be in that house.

Rice's parents were devoted to education and achievement, which they felt would enable Rice to be a success in whatever profession she chose. She was also often reminded that she would have to be "twice as good," but never to think of herself as a victim. Her ancestors had taken every opportunity to learn and had passed that appreciation of learning to their children.

In the end, it was Rice's own family legacy of dedication to the educational process and not the civil rights struggle that defined her story. While a junior at the University of Denver, Rice attended a lecture given by Professor Josef Korbel — that would change her life. He was a former central European diplomat and a Soviet specialist.

His daughter, Madeleine Albright — , later became secretary of state for President Bill Clinton —; served — Rice spent time in the Korbel home and decided she wanted to study the Soviet Union. She had recently given up on her dream of becoming a concert pianist, and Russia became her new passion. Her attraction for Soviet studies came into focus at Notre Dame.

She also had an interest in military strategy. She wrote about the problems of arms control and U. Rice visited Russia several times over a five-year period in the late s and early s while doing research for her dissertation. As noted in Antonia Felix's book Condi: The Condoleezza Rice Story, George magazine's Ann Reilly Dowd wrote a profile on Rice that summarized her position: "Condi came to see the Cold War not as a war of ideas between communism and democracy but as something more primordial [basic or elemental]—a raw contest between two great competing national interests.

In economic theory, it bans private ownership of property and businesses so that all goods produced and wealth accumulated are supposedly shared equally by all. Democracy is a political system consisting of several political parties whose members are elected to various government offices by vote of the people. Its economic system is called capitalism, where property and business are privately owned and competition in the marketplace establishes financial success or failure.

In , while Rice was teaching at Stanford, she received a call. He wanted Rice to come to Washington. They got along well; both spoke fluent Russian and were academically oriented. Both had taught Soviet history. Bush asked Rice to serve on the National Security Council NSC , an advisory group in the executive branch of government consisting of the president; the secretaries of state, defense, army, navy, and air force; and the national security advisor and staff.

She took a leave of absence from Stanford and put her Soviet expertise into practice. Rice joined the forty-member team as director of Soviet and East European affairs. Four months later, she was senior director for Soviet affairs. She was also named special assistant to the president for national security affairs. She served as an aide to Scowcroft and helped coordinate the U.

Events climaxed in December at the Malta Summit. Malta is an island nation in the Mediterranean Sea 60 miles [97 kilometers] south of Sicily, Italy. Rice accompanied Scowcroft as part of the U. They met on the Soviet cruiser Maxim Gorky to discuss the reunification of Germany. At Malta, the two leaders opened up a new age of cooperation between the superpowers—and Rice was there.

With the collapse of the communist government in East Germany as well as other Eastern European countries in , the Soviet Union soon broke apart in the next two years. Rice was at the center of American-Soviet policy during the breakup until she left her post in March The Soviet Union would cease to exist on December 31, Returning to Stanford, Rice was again an educator.

In , she was appointed provost a university's chief budget and academic officer. It was a bumpy ride, as the university was facing several financial problems. She was also criticized for not doing enough to promote diversity. Rice's professional activities were not limited to the university. She volunteered her time as cofounder of the Center for a New Generation.

The center was an after-school. She also served as a corporate board member for several corporations, including Chevron, a giant in the U. Chevron named a supertanker after her. She also resumed her writing career. Upon Bush's election in , the president-elect named her as his national security advisor. She filled the crucial role of presidential sounding board.

Her combination of charm, intelligence, and charisma served her well as the chief referee between the often powerfully divided opinions within a presidential administration. She was said to deliver her considered wisdom in whispers, not shouts. Her role as national security advisor within the Bush administration brought her into the forefront on the declared war on terrorism following the September 11, , terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.

Rice claimed her dream job would be to one day become the National Football League commissioner. A huge sports fan, she also worked out regularly. It was reported that more business was conducted on the tennis court at Camp David , the presidential retreat in Maryland, than sitting on the porch. Despite giving up her early ambitions of becoming a concert pianist, she continued to play regularly on the Steinway her parents had given her when she was fifteen.

Rice has described herself as a deeply religious person. Like her parents before her, she wanted to make a difference in the lives of young people. As noted in Antonia Felix's Condi: The Condoleezza Rice Story, while speaking to a group of graduates at Stanford University in , she urged them to make a difference in their world. She talked to them about tackling the problems of the Cold War.

Felix, Antonia. Condi: The Condoleezza Rice Story. New York : Newmarket Press, Biography of Dr. Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor. Condoleezza Rice became the first female national security advisor in U. As a faculty member at Stanford University, she was the youngest provost in the institution's year history and the first African American to hold the position.

The Gorbachev Era edited with Alexander Dallin. Condoleezza Rice born is a classic over-achiever. Growing up in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, Rice refused to let the boundaries set by society limit her. She has become a close adviser to President George W. Bush, involved in decisions that shape the future of the United States of America.

Condoleezza Rice was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on November 14, Her father, John Wesley Rice, was a school guidance counselor during the week and a Presbyterian minister on the weekends. Her mother, Angelena, was a schoolteacher. The family lived in a middle-class, black community called Titusville, where education was a high priority for children who were expected to succeed regardless of any prejudices or boundaries.

John and Angelena Rice tried to give everything possible to their young daughter, providing intangible support by developing her sense of pride, faith, and responsibility. And to give a child that kind of entitlement, you have to love her to death and make her believe that she can fly. Rice grew to love the game and would follow football wherever she went.

In the early s, the civil rights movement landed in Birmingham. Schoolchildren were encouraged to participate in marches and other demonstrations. The Rice family did not join in but sometimes went down to watch history unfold. He would never put his own child at risk. Some of the young adults arrested were John Rice's students. Television cameras caught it all on tape for the nation to see.

Events that were stirring the emotions of the nation were occurring right in Birmingham when Rice was only eight years old. Vigilantes bombed the home of a family friend, Arthur Shores, twice in the fall of On September 15, , the 16th Street Baptist Church was bombed, killing four young girls attending Sunday school. One of the girls, Denise Nair, was Rice's friend from school.

Rice had heard the explosion and felt the shudder of the blast. She remembers her father and the other men from the neighborhood organizing to patrol the streets at night with shotguns. She was growing up with terrorism. Not long after, the family went to dinner at a previously all-white restaurant in Birmingham. Rice was a bright student and skipped both first and seventh grade.

Her parents encouraged her to do well in everything she tried, and they provided lessons in piano, ballet, violin, French, and skating, and instruction in dress, grooming, and manners. In , she was the first black student to attend music classes at Birmingham Southern Conservatory of Music. When Rice was 11 years old, her father accepted a position in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, as a college administrator.

Two years after that, he accepted a position as vice chancellor at the University of Denver in Colorado. For the first time, Rice attended integrated school at St. Mary's Academy, a private Catholic school. During her first year, a school counselor advised her that she was not college material, despite her excellent grades and musical and athletic accomplishments.

At age 15, Rice graduated from high school and started attending the University of Denver, hoping to become a concert pianist. Although she was a talented performer, she knew that the competition for professional performers was stiff. Partway through college, she decided she would never become a concert pianist. She took a course called "Introduction to International Politics.

Josef Korbel, a Soviet specialist and the father of Madeleine Albright who later became secretary of state under President Bill Clinton , inspired her. She changed her major to political science. Rice was an avid student, and in , she earned her bachelor's degree in political science cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa at age She was awarded the Political Science Honors Award for "outstanding accomplishment and promise in the field of political science.

She returned to Denver, unsure of what to do next. Then, when she was down at the university, Dr. Korbel recommended that she take some classes. By , she had received her Ph. It was the first time the Center had ever admitted a woman. The fellowship was supposed to be for one year, but Rice made a big impression and was offered a job as an assistant professor of political science at Stanford University , which she accepted.

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Condelisa rice biography

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Biographies of the Secretaries of State: Condoleezza Rice Stanford University. Condoleezza Rice, PhD. Department of State. How to Cite this page. Related Biographies. Abrams is now one of the most prominent African American female politicians in the United States. Abigail Adams was an early advocate for women's rights. A progressive social reformer and activist, Jane Addams was on the frontline of the settlement house movement and was the first American woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize.

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