Black History Month: Condoleezza Rice
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Dr. Condoleezza Rice is the first black woman to serve as the United States’ national security adviser, as well as the first black woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of State (2005-09). Condoleezza Rice was born in 1954 in Alabama. She became the first woman and first African American to serve as provost of Stanford University. In 2001, Rice was appointed national security adviser by President George W. Bush, becoming the first black woman (and second woman) to hold the post, and went on to become the first black woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of State.
Condoleezza Rice was born on November 14, 1954 in Birmingham, Alabama. The only child of a Presbyterian minister and a teacher, Rice grew up surrounded by racism in the segregated South. She earned her bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Denver in 1974; her master’s from the University of Notre Dame in 1975; and her PhD from the University of Denver’s Graduate School of International Studies in 1981. In 1993, Rice became the first woman and first African American to serve as provost of Stanford University—a post she held for six years.
As Secretary of State, Rice dedicated her department to “Transformational Diplomacy,” with a mission of building and sustaining democratic, well-governed states around the world and the Middle East in particular.
Submitted by: Garry Brown Jr. PhD.
Source Attribution: Condoleezza Rice Biography. The Biography.com website https://www.biography.com/people/condoleezza-rice-9456857. Access Date February 6, 2018 A&E Television Networks
