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MAMA LEEZZY WAS A CIVIL RIGHTS SOLDIER: Secretary of State gives props to her late mother in new issue of Good Housekeeping.
*In an interview for a special Mother’s Day issue of Good Housekeeping, Secretary of Condoleezza Rice says her mom, Angelina, was on the front line of the civil rights movement and stood up to racism and segregation that permeated life outside of their Birmingham, Alabama home.
Rice, 51, remembers one particular incident when she was about 6 or 7 years old and shopping for an Easter dress with her mother.
"The store clerk said, 'She'll have to try it on in there,'" and pointed to a storeroom, Rice told the magazine. "And my mother said, 'Allow me to be very clear. If we are going to buy this, she is going to try it on in there,'" and pointed to the dressing room, Rice said.
"And you could see this woman thinking it over, and then she sort of said, 'All right, go ahead,'" Rice added. "So my mother was pretty defiant, really."
Rice can’t recall whether her parents were ever bitter about the racism the encountered.
"I remember my parents making it very clear that this was not about me or my worth," Rice said. "It was their problem, not mine."
Angelena Rice was diagnosed with breast cancer when Condoleezza was just 15. She was able to see her daughter embark on a career in politics, before the disease would eventually take her 15 years later.
Rice told the magazine she is grateful her mother lived to see "a trajectory for my life. At 15, I was still supposed to be a concert pianist. At 30, it was clear that I was going to do international politics. What I'm most grateful for is that she knew where I was going."
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