so i walked the couple blocks over to the church so big we call it “fort baptist” (their history notes that they lost a lot of members to a yellow fever epidemic in the 1850’s, which you don’t normally see a lot of shout-outs for) to see the graduation of some good friends, and to see national security advisor condoleeza rice.
cards on table: i am a liberal democrat. i’ve worked in a host of campaigns, all for democrats or folks leaning that way (in my state, judicial candidates can’t declare party affiliation). i fully opposed our actions in iraq—legally, politically, and morally. but i really wanted to hear what she had to say.
what she had to say was fabulous. she’s a very pretty woman, first off—and even though i was in the cheap seats one could see that. her voice is clear and strong, reminding of some of the other professional black females i know: no accent at all, perfectly eloquent and erudite. and she was a hit.
she described herself as a “daughter of the south,” which delighted me, and made me laugh when she said that she was “neither a lawyer nor a baptist.” she spoke of the value of education—and about her grandfather rice, who died two months before she was born.
one day her grandfather decided he wanted “book learning,” and asked somebody where he might get it. he was told that a presbyterian college down the road a ways would teach colored folks. so he raised his cotton, and he sold it—enough to pay for a year’s tuition.
at the end of that year, he was out of cotton, and out of money. but he wanted desperately to stay on. he went to the school officials and asked how he might get a scholarship.
“well, we do give out scholarships to those who wish to become presbyterian ministers,” he was told.
“really? because that’s exactly what i was thinking of doing.” from that time forward, all the rice family went to college—and they were all presbyterians, too.
another wonderful anecdote was about how she “never doubted the existence of god,” but did go through periods of shakiness. during one of these valleys she was teaching at stanford and shopping at a grocery store when a fellow came up to her and asked if she played piano.
she said she did, and so she started playing for a local all-black baptist church. in her words, the problem was that “i didn’t play gospel, i played brahms! the musician is just supposed to follow the lead of the singing, but they would start up in no key whatsoever!”
she called her mom, who had played piano for baptist churches, for help. “just play in ‘c’, and they’ll come back to you, darling.” that’s the base key for music. and from that, she inferred that god must play in ‘c,’ as well.
she spoke of what she called our second american founding—the civil rights era. she felt it pitted the natural law underpinning the constituion—that all should be treated equal—against the distorted laws of men that created segregation. she spoke of jackson as a critical city in that second founding. my thoughts drifted to describing jackson as the philadelphia of the 20th century—as vital to the creation of the new america as that grand old city was in the 18th century.
she spoke of “the promise of multiethnic democracy,” and how we should fight terrorism in all forms—including the type she grew up with in birmingham, and how she lost her friend denise mcnair at the sixteenth street church bombing. she told us that “small, quiet steps mean more than the toppling of statues,” and then she summed it all up with a faulkner quote.
i’ll say this: i did not rise to my feet when she entered, but i did when she finished. i am absolutely enchanted. i’d always thought of her as a brainy, aloof type—but she was nothing of the sort. a person of immense personal charm.
one thing she did that touched me was to note how some have overcome adversity—how one graduate was born in the slums of jamaica, and how one would become the first female choctaw lawyer (which drew whoos! from her family, and a smile from me). she might well have noted my acquaintance e.h. in the audience, belly stretched from twins, wriggling even as she spoke, or one of my best friends in the world, mm—literally from nowhere, north mississippi, not even a town nearby to claim—she’s just from tishomingo county. out of that came a woman who waited tables between running political campaigns, and used to furrow her brow and yell at men worth tens of millions of dollars—and they’d do what she said to do. i’ve seen governors leap to their feet when she walks into the room.
so i was happy to be in the room with these baby lawyers, these future judges, and congresspersons, and governors. and i was happy to listen to the woman who whispers in the ear of the president, who may very well hold the future of the world in her hands.