The first African American woman to serve as United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice was born on November 14, 1954 in Birmingham, Alabama.
President George W. Bush appointed Rice to serve as the first African American National Security Adviser. She was later elevated to the position of Secretary of State. Rice was an integral part of the Bush Campaign inner circle during the turbulent times of the September 11, 2001 attacks and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. She served as Secretary of State from 2005 to 2009. Rice's family moved from Alabama to Denver, Colorado where she graduated from high school at the age of 15. She went on to attend and graduate from the University of Denver with a B.A. in Political Science when she was only 19 years old. Rice later received her Masters Degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1975 and her Ph.D., from the University of Denver in 1981.
Prior to accepting the position of National Security Adviser, Rice had served as the Provost of the University of Denver. She returned to the University of Denver in 2009 after leaving the White House as a political science professor and Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution.
Words That Matter
“I would even say that my parents, and their friends in our community, thought of education as a kind of armor against racism.”