Condi! ping...
Posted on 11/23/2004 7:28:22 PM PST by buckeyesrule
Rice's Titusville roots
By HOLLY LANG
BIRMINGHAM POST-HERALD
Condoleezza Rice was the girl many remembered as always studying, her face close to her books as darkness would fall on her Titusville street in the 1950s and '60s. "Condi always put her studies first, even though we always played sports like baseball in the afternoon," Birmingham City Councilwoman Carole Smitherman said. Smitherman lived across the street from Rice.
"She would never come out and play until all her work was done. From sunup to 5 in afternoon at least, she'd work," Smitherman said. "And it was all worth it."
Last week, President Bush nominated Rice, 51, to succeed Colin Powell as secretary of state. Powell, whose wife, Alma Powell, also is from Birmingham, said he would not serve in Bush's second term administration.
"It's the classic American dream, right here from Titusville," Smitherman said.
Rice was born in 1954, the year of Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that desegregated public schools, finding the "separate but equal" principle unfair.
For the Rices, education was the key to success. It was something the family has held sacred for several generations.
"(My grandfather) asked ... where a colored man could go to college," Rice said at the 2000 Republican National Convention. "He was told about little Stillman College, a school about 50 miles away, so Granddaddy saves up his cotton for tuition and he went off to Tuscaloosa."
Stillman College is located in Tuscaloosa.
John and Angelena Rice, Condoleezza's parents, attended college and later both became educators. John Rice later became dean of Stillman College; Angelena Rice taught music and science at a nearby all-black school.
Freeman Hrabowski — Rice's childhood friend and now the president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County — said her parents always placed education first.
"Education was the way she — all of us —could prevail," he said.
By age 3, Condoleezza Rice learned to read and had already began afterschool lessons in classical piano, French, ballet and figure skating, friends said.
"She was a very dedicated child," said Chris McNair, the father of Denise McNair, one of the four little girls killed in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963. Condoleezza Rice and Denise McNair attended kindergarten together at Westminster Presbyterian Church, where John Rice was pastor.
"She was different in the sense that seemed quite determined to learn," Chris McNair said. Named for the Italian musical notation con dolcezza, meaning to play "with sweetness," Rice, still an avid pianist, would often open her window while practicing and neighborhood children would listen.
"It wasn't music that we were particularly wanting to hear, except that Condi was playing it," Smitherman said.
Hrabowski said the Titusville neighbors always showed keen interest in each other.
"She had — we all had — strong families, caring neighbors and a solid community," Hrabowski said. "We all grew up in that neighborhood having an incredible sense of self."
Titusville spans several blocks with wide front lawns and neat one-story homes lining the street, most in a similar 1940s style.
"It was a neighborhood filled with love," Hrabowski said. "Our parents had high expectations for us, letting us dream about possibilities that weren't always a reality at that point in time."
Those black children grew up in a city torn by racial tensions and marked by violence.
"As a girl in the segregated South, Dr. Rice saw the promise of America violated by racial discrimination," Bush said in his appointment speech Nov. 16.
But Hrabowski said the trials of youth only strengthened the children.
"We learned that despite everything that happened around us, we didn't have to be victims," Hrabowski said. "We learned that knowledge is true power, and that we would have to work to be the best."
The neighborhood was the first in the country to have the majority of its houses owned by blacks, Hrabowski said.
"There were news articles about it at the time," he said. "We lived in a place where 'Negroes' owned their homes. We were all so proud of that."
And from this small, progressive neighborhood came many who found success.
"Well, there's Condi, which you already know, but there were several others," Hrabowski said.
As he lists the names, his voice fills with of pride.
"Sheryl McCarthy, she's a columnist for Newsday now. Sarah Mays, she's a doctor. Joseph Gayles, he used to be the president of Talladega College but then he help start the Morehouse School of Medicine."
And there are still others.
Rice's childhood friend Mary Bush is a former board member of the International Monetary Fund and served in several senior finance positions during the administrations of former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.
Rice's best friend as a child, Deborah Cheatham-Carson — who still lives in the same Titusville neighborhood — is an outspoken Democrat who was active in Bill Clinton's two presidential campaigns as well as Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean's campaign. Childhood classmate Bernadette Weston-Hartfield is a law professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta.
All attended Ullman High, which is now closed.
"I think we all honestly felt that teachers cared about us," Hrabowski said. "Our education mattered to them and it mattered to us."
Hrabowski said the one lesson the children learned most was that they didn't have time to be victims.
"We all learned that we were bigger than any one place," Hrabowski said.
Both Hrabowski and Rice graduated high school at age 15, both going college in other states. Rice's parents moved from Birmingham to Denver about the same time as her high school graduation. She then went to Denver University, where she studied classical piano until she took a class taught by Josef Korbel, the father of former Secretary of State Madeline Albright.
From there, her interests shifted to political science. She received her bachelor's degree in political science from Denver University in 1974, a master's degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1975 and a doctorate in international studies from Denver University in 1981.
But Birmingham — and Titusville — take pride in Rice's rise to the nation's top diplomatic post.
"This is a huge deal for Alabama and for our native daughter to ascend to such a wonderfully high height," Smitherman said. "What a shining example for schoolchildren to see that you can be from small town USA, work hard, study hard and prepare yourself, making the world unlimited to you."
CONDI IN '08!!!!
She is the best I am glad to see she got the job.
I too liked Condi before Condi was cool. I want Condoleezza to run for President, she would be awesome!
>http://www.draftcondirice.com>
Great article, and very informative. One thing really knocked me down, though: "She then went to Denver University, where she studied classical piano until she took a class taught by Josef Korbel, the father of former Secretary of State Madeline Albright."
So, Maddy Albright's father was responsible for Condoleeza Rice's going into politics. What irony. No wonder Albright has been giving interviews in which she attacks Rice as a disastrous appointment--she's jealous.
I just found it deliciously ironic as well: a Democrat political science professor had one of his favourite students that turned out to be conservative Republican.
Condi! ping...
Dad always liked you more...
BUMP!
She is the smartest woman in the world.
Condi is also way more photogenic than Maddy........
"Rice's childhood friend Mary Bush is a former board member of the International Monetary Fund and served in several senior finance positions during the administrations of former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan."
bttt
When is the minority community going to wake up to the fact that fixation on sports is hurting their children?
Whoa! What a great pick of her.
Big Condoleeza Rice ~ Bump!
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