Condoleezza Rice

Background

Condoleezza Rice was born in Birmingham, Alabama in the racially segregated South to parents Angelena Rice, a high school teacher, and John Wesley Rice Jr., a high school guidance counselor, Presbyterian minister, and dean of students at Stillman College. Rice graduated from high school at the age of 16 in 1971. She subsequently enrolled at the University of Denver, where her father worked as assistant dean. Though she initially majored in music, Rice eventually switched to political science after attending an International Politics course taught by Josef Korbel. In 1974, at the age of 19, she was awarded a bachelor’s degree in political science. She also obtained a master’s degree in political science from the University of Notre Dame in 1975.

Rice began working at the State Department in 1977 as an intern in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. At 26, she received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Denver. She served as the 19th National Security Advisor from 2001 to 2005, and the 66th Secretary of State from 2005 to 2009, all under the Bush administration. She is the current director of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. A member of the Republican party, Rice was the first African-American Secretary of State and the first ever woman National Security Advisor in American history. Rice has had a long career working in academia and politics and has had a huge impact on the United State’s internal and external policies since the late 1990s.