By Drew Jubera, Gayle White
She was born the year the U.S. Supreme Court declared
"separate but equal" schools unconstitutional, yet was educated until
her teenage years in Birmingham's
segregated schools.
Her physical world was limited to the all-black parts of
town, but her minister father and music teacher mother made sure she had
private piano and French lessons.
Doug Mills/New York Times
President Bush embraces Condoleezza Rice after nominating
her for secretary of state. Her strong intellect and closeness to the Bush
family make her a power in his inner circle.
She once told graduating law students at Mississippi
College in Jackson:
"Growing up in Birmingham, I
lived with the homegrown terrorism of that era." Indeed, she felt her
father's church shake the morning in 1963 when a bomb exploded inside the Sixteenth
Street Baptist Church
nearby and killed four young black girls. One was Denise McNair, her
kindergarten classmate.
Now Condoleezza Rice, nominated for secretary of state on
Tuesday, is set to become the highest-ranking black woman in U.S.
government history.
And while her Republican affiliation sets her apart
politically from many of the African-Americans she grew up with in the South,
those who knew her then talk with pride of her achievement.
"You can't help but see her as an inspiration, even
though you may disagree with some of the things she's said or done," said
Chris McNair, the father of Denise. He remembers his little girl's friend
Condoleezza as being "very conscientious even back then."
"I think even the staunchest black Democrat would
congratulate her, even if he wouldn't do it openly," McNair said Tuesday.
"Some of us question the president very strongly but are still wishing her
the best."
Rice's rise to a critical Cabinet position seems at once
unlikely and the most sensible thing in the world.
As her aunt, Mattie Ray Bond, of Fairfield,
Ala., said, "We expected success from
all of our children. And I've always considered her a special young lady."
Rice, 50, is descended from a family of preachers. Her
grandfather was the founding pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church, where
her father was minister from 1951 to 1965, and where young Condoleezza lived
until the congregation built a separate home for its pastors.
She grew up in the middle-class black neighborhood of Titusville,
a leafy subdivision of modest bungalows and neat little yards. She played piano
at age 4 at her father's church. Playmates often sat on her front steps waiting
for Rice to finish practicing duets with her mother so she could join them in
games of stickball.
"We waited on the steps while she made Bach and
Beethoven and all those guys feel like they were her friends," recalled
Carole Smitherman, a Birmingham
lawyer and city councilwoman who grew up across the street. "She was
always playing the piano or reading or working, but when she did have time to
play, she played really hard."
Added Deborah Carson, 49, another childhood friend:
"She always seemed a little older than she was."
Her father wasn't active in the day's civil rights protests,
instead concentrating on the education of local black children. He was a
counselor at the all-black high school and ran programs that ranged from eye
exams to art appreciation.
"She was always taught by her dad not to let the
segregation experience cripple her and keep her from knowing she could
achieve," said Odessa Woolfolk, who worked with
Rice's father as an educator and is the founding president of the Birmingham
Civil Rights Institute. "She was brought up to be an achiever."
Rice left Birmingham
at 11, eventually moving with her family to Denver,
where she was one of three black students at a Catholic high school. She
entered the University of Denver
at 15, graduating magna cum laude. She earned a master's degree at Notre Dame
and a doctorate in international studies at Denver.
She joined the Stanford University
faculty in 1981, at age 27, and became provost a decade later.
She switched her party affiliation to Republican in the late
1970s. Having cast her first presidential vote for Democrat Jimmy Carter in
1976, Rice, fluent in Russian, thought Carter mishandled the Cold War.
"I thought Carter didn't understand the true nature of
the Soviet Union, which was pretty dark," she once
said.
She cast her next vote for Ronald Reagan.
After a chance meeting at Stanford with Brent Scowcroft,
national security adviser to President George Bush, she joined his
administration as special assistant for national security affairs.
When George W. Bush was elected in 2000, Rice became
national security adviser and one of the president's most trusted aides, as
well as a close friend.
"As a girl in the segregated South," Bush said
Tuesday, "Dr. Rice saw the promise of America
violated by racial discrimination and by the violence that comes from
hate."
Those who knew her in Birmingham
say they are not surprised by her rise. Many of the traits she displays now,
she had then, they say.
"Those famed steely eyes she has, she had those when
she was younger," said Smitherman. "It was
as if she could look at you and know what you were thinking. I think they'll
benefit us all now."
Added Woolfolk: "No one would
have thought decades ago this young kid from segregated Birmingham
would one day sit in the White House and be secretary of state. But she was
always such a rare combination of intelligence, drive and charm, it just seems
so right."
Published on: 11/16/04
Source: ajc.com
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