Condoleezza Rice: Who She is and What Has Shaped Her

Introduction

Born in 1954, Condoleezza Rice has witnessed and participated in many of the impactful events of the 20th century around the world, but her role is far more than just that. She is a pianist, a golfer, a professor, a diplomat, and the very first African American woman to hold the office of Secretary of State. She is also the first woman to serve as the President for National Security Affairs (National Security Advisor) for President George W. Bush. Among all the legacies she has achieved, what makes me wonder is how she flourishes in the field of diplomacy as well as politics in a world where white men dominate the power predominantly. Her stories have inspired and influenced me to pursue the same ambition and hopefully, in the future, do the same for millions of girls of color.

This essay is not set to highlight the accomplishments of Condoleezza Rice, for they are already well written and documented on the highly accessible internet. Instead, it will be discussing the factors that shaped Rice into one of the most prominent role models for women in the 20th and 21st centuries. This essay will introduce Rice’s early life, education, and career first, then analyze Rice’s special characteristics based on my point of view. At the very end, to sum up, I will be connecting her early life, her career, and different aspects of her altogether, presenting the assumption of all the possible elements that make her one of the women who changed the course of history forever.

Early Life and Education

Condoleezza Rice was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on the 14th of November, 1954. To many, it is a consequential year in the history of the civil rights movement — the landmark case on the Supreme Court, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, overruled the case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, which claimed the idea of “separate-but-equal,” legalizing segregation in public facilities. Despite the fact that segregation and the ingrained idea of discrimination against African Americans were not eliminated and still have not been eradicated even in the present day, they were undeniably a significant cornerstone in the history of the civil rights movement.

In Condoleezza Rice’s household, Rice’s father, John Wesley Rice Jr., worked as a football coach and a guidance counselor at a local black high school in Birmingham, where he also serves as a pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church, founded by his own father. Rice’s mother, Angelena (nee Ray) Rice, who was also an educator, teaches science, oratory, and music in high school. As an opera lover, Angelena named her only daughter after a musical term, con dolcezza, which means “to play with sweetness” in Italian. In one of her books, Condoleezza Rice describes her parents as “extraordinary, ordinary people,” which is also the title of her memoir, which has been nominated for several awards, including the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work.

Rice grew up in a black community in Titusville, one of the segregated communities, where the talented aroused, including Alma Johnson Powell, the former Secretary of State, Colin Powell’s wife, Sheryl McCarthy, an award-winning journalist at Newsday and the New York Daily News and a national correspondent for ABC News, and Harold Jackson, a journalist who won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing.

At the age of 8, a tragedy was going to change both the entire country and the life of Condoleezza Rice. “There was no sanctuary. There was no place really safe,” Rice later recalled. Birmingham had a nice name, “Bombingham,” and it came with reasons. On Sunday, September 15, 1963, a church in downtown Birmingham, 16st Street Baptist Church, was bombed. The building was demolished, just so, and one of the most prominent churches at that time was gone for good. Four girls died in the bombing. Among the four was Rice’s friend, 11-year-old Denise McNairwith, who went to her father’s church kindergarten and was a playmate to Rice in her childhood. In her later year working as Secretary of State under President George W. Bush, she was able to apply this experience and agonizing memory to the constant bombing in Israel and Palestine during the multilateral peace negotiations. She told Reuters, “I told them I know what it is like for a Palestinian mother, who has to tell her child they can’t go somewhere, and how it is for an Israeli mother, who puts her child to bed and wonders if the child will be alive in the morning.”

Career

Rice graduated from the University of Denver in 1974 with a bachelor of arts degree in political science, and within one year, she got her master’s in political science from the University of Notre Dame. In 1981, she received her doctorate from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver. Soon after her graduation, Stanford University offered a position for her to be a professor of political science, which she accepted and thus resumed her path in academia.

During Rice’s teaching career at Stanford, she won several teaching awards, was selected as the Provost of Stanford, and even eliminated Stanford’s deficit in two years while bringing in a new record of a $14.5 million surplus. She was also the co-founder of a program that helped underprivileged students called the Center of New Generation.

At a meeting of arms control experts in Stanford in 1985, Rice met with the former National Security Advisor under Gerald Ford, Brent Scowcroft, who later asked Rice to be on the United States National Security Council as a Soviet expert. During her tenure, Rice and her advice on affairs with the Soviet Union were regarded highly by President H.W. Bush. After her short return to academia in 2000, she became the first black woman to hold the position of national security advisor. During her tenure, she actively promoted world peace by placing American ambassadors in the Middle East and Africa, especially in areas where tumult swept through.

In 2009, her appointment in politics ended; however, she was restless. She remained in academia, publishing books and autobiographies and working as a processor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, teaching global business and economy. She keeps up her earlier interest in playing piano, albeit not as a professional musician, and brings another “first ‘’ to the world by becoming the first female member of the Augusta National Golf Club. She continues to bring new ideas to this ever-changing world and is never afraid of the new challenges. Just like what she said, “Great leaders never accept the world as it is and always work for the world as it should be.”

Leadership

Growing up in a segregated community in Birmingham, Alabama, Rice has known she has to be twice as good, twice as confident, and work twice as hard to deal with the ubiquitous prejudice. This reflects greatly on her leadership; she is always well-prepared, concentrated, and diligent. She knew her ethnicity would be the reason being suppressed in the historical backdrop, yet she never chose to give up or give in.

When coming across high-position leadership in global affairs, Rice said, “If, by time you’re secretary of state, you let somebody treat you badly because you’re a woman, it’s your fault — not theirs.” Rice puts it pretty simply as one of the outlines of her principles. In the world of politics, we tend to assume females, especially black females, are vulnerable. We are likely to pretend they have far less influence and power over white male figures. But Rice would not let the “stereotype” occupy how people think of her.

Speech

Condoleezza Rice is a lot different from the typical politicians we are familiar with. She speaks with a very strong sense of rationality, unlike some of the politicians who constantly adopt inflammatory and emotional remarks in order to get viewers’ attention on certain topics.

Rice possesses all the good techniques you will find in a great public speaker. She speaks at an adequate speed, and even slower to make sure all the audience gets it. She also makes eye contact with the audience at exactly the right time for them to feel comfortable. To sum up, Rice is a great model for those who are eager to improve their public speaking. While I was watching her speech for the Reagan Foundation, “The Time of Choosing,” I was moved by the content of the speech, fascinated by how she delivered it perfectly, and intrigued by the fact that, after hours, her voices still swirl around my head, echoing in all the chambers in my brain. That, I told myself, is what a great speech is like.

Glass Ceiling

One of the things I appreciate most about Condoleezza Rice is that she is willing to defend her beliefs, either morally or politically, at the cost of everything. During her tenure as Secretary of State, she was deemed one of the most powerful women in the world, and she also took the opportunity to promote women’s rights and welfare, including publicly speaking against the brutal regime in Afghanistan and advocating for the liberation of Afghan women.

“You have plenty of arrows in your quiver, and if you ever find that someone is questioning your authority then you should do what anyone does when their authority is questioned and you should either work it out with the person or you should fire them, and I did both.” Rice has never considered herself a “minority” working in such a high position. To her, she is just doing her job. She never puts herself in a lower position or fits into the role of being suppressed. She is always well-equipped and ready for challenges and is prepared to fight, if necessary.

Conclusion

Condoleezza Rice is surely a shining spark in the deep, wide ocean of politics and international relations, starting a whole new page for women in a world that is mainly driven by white men. For her, the segregated community in her childhood did not oppress her growth but further strengthen it, making her strong, determined, and always well-equipped. She won many of the “first” titles for herself, yet she stays humble and kind. For many, her identity as a black woman and a woman would have confined her career, but Rice did not let it happen — she is a woman who never gives hostages to fortune. She works twice as hard to stay in her best condition and never compromises. To her, the glass ceiling does not exist, nor does it have the right to blockade her path to success. She pivots the world of international affairs, and she is still making her progress to shine as the woman who changes the history of both the US and the world as a whole.

Work Cited

“Condoleezza Rice.” Hoover Institution, www.hoover.org/profiles/condoleezza-rice. Accessed 25 Feb. 2023.

“A High Honor: Women Secretaries of State.” National Museum of American Diplomacy, diplomacy.state.gov/stories/a-high-honor-women-secretaries-of-state/. Accessed 25 Feb. 2023.

“Condoleezza Rice Biography.” Encyclopedia of World Biography, www.notablebiographies.com/news/Ow-Sh/Rice-Condoleezza.html. Accessed 6 Mar. 2023.

Gates, Verna . “Condoleezza Rice Recalls Racial Blast That Killed Childhood Friend.” Reuters, 14 Sept. 2013, www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-alabama-memorial-idUSBRE98C11720130914. Accessed 7 Mar. 2023.

“Condoleezza Rice Remembers the ‘jolt’ of the Bomb Wave 50 Years Ago.” AL.Com, 13 Sept. 2013, www.al.com/spotnews/2013/09/condoleezza_rice_remembers_the.html. Accessed 10 Mar. 2023.

Management, UB School of, et al. “What I Learned about Leadership from Condoleezza Rice: On Leadership.” On Leadership | Insights from the University at Buffalo School of Management, 10 Jan. 2022, https://ubwp.buffalo.edu/school-of-management-leadership/2019/05/09/what-i-learned-about-leadership-from-condoleezza-rice/.

BBC (2015, March 25). Shattering the ‘highest, hardest’ glass ceiling. Retrieved April 10, 2023, from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-31967516