by Susan Rice
So I was surprised one day at practice when in conversation with the team on the sidelines of the gym, for no apparent reason and without rancor, she looked me in the eyes and called me “Nigger.”
Reflexively and immediately, I replied, “Fuck you.”
That was the end of that conversation. My teammates were stunned into silence.
I was shocked but not hurt. We both moved on. While I’ve never forgotten her epithet, I never blamed her for it. And she never blamed me for responding in kind. I understood that the N-word was likely one she heard growing up. It came out involuntarily and not maliciously, but I also knew it could not go unanswered. Cussing out a teacher was something I have not done before or since.
Unfortunately, she stayed at NCS only for my freshman and sophomore years before leaving to marry and coach at the college level. Basketball was never as fun without her, but she kept in touch, following our team’s progress and writing letters to me and other students long after she was gone. In them, she offered me thoughtful tips about setting personal goals in basketball, not letting myself get wrapped up in other people’s expectations, whether athletic or academic, and insisted that I “be Susan Rice always.”
Some thirty-five years later, during the 2012 Benghazi drama when I was regularly reviled on cable television, Coach sent me another handwritten letter, in which she apologized for ever hurting me, thanked me for my service to our country, and said she was inspired by me and would keep praying for me. I cherish that letter and keep it close.
Sports taught me to be fearless—even to use my body as a weapon. While enduring the frustration of sitting on the bench, I reveled in the success of my teammates. Playing point guard taught me how to lead a team in which everyone adds value, and my optimal contribution is not as an individual but is in eliciting the best performance from all the players in unison. Undoubtedly my approach to leadership in the years to come was forged not only in academia but also on the court.
Off the court, I devoted much of my energy to student leadership. As president of the school government in my senior year, I developed early political skills—public speaking, persuasion, and constituent service. My responsibilities also included helping the headmaster and senior faculty manage disciplinary cases and revise and enforce the honor code. I found the added stress of these adult obligations to be considerable—especially in combination with a rigorous course load and sports. While I relished serving my fellow students and being trusted by the faculty, I couldn’t be serious all the time.
Like most teenagers, I found refuge in good friends and was closest to a trio of girls who later were my bridesmaids and remain besties. Laura Richards is kind, soft-spoken, sympathetic, and blessed with both intelligence and unusual common sense. Trinka Roeckelein is a high-octane, beautiful, and sensitive artist with multiple creative talents. With Andrea Worden, an excellent student and athlete (and far better basketball player than I was), I shared family difficulties, plus an enduring interest in China and human rights issues.
Over the years, I have stayed close to several other cherished NCS classmates, including Hutchey Brock, my first close Republican friend. The Brock family lived near the house my mother rented after the separation. When I was angry, sad, or needed a respite, I ran to Hutchey’s house where I always found a welcoming safe haven. Their gentle Tennessee warmth and cohesive, loving family were a powerful antidote to the wreckage of my parents’ marriage and a proximate example of a healthy home.
Given the racial composition of my school—there were about six black girls in my class of sixty-three students—most of my NCS friends were white. My social circle outside of school was little more diverse, because our parents insisted that, just as we would not join white elite dance societies or country clubs (even if we could), the Rices would not retreat within the walls of exclusively black kids’ clubs. That applied especially to the D.C. chapter of Jack and Jill, a selective national social club for black children, which our parents refused to allow us to attend. When one of us questioned this edict, my parents’ response was: “We may be relatively well-off blacks, but are not going to be ‘bougie,’ self-important, social-climbing Negroes.”
At NCS, I never felt that race infused or affected my relationships with my white friends. My classmates knew and respected me for who I was, including the fact that I was African American, and they did not treat me differently than others. Not so all their parents, many of whom were quietly unreconstructed southern conservatives who belonged to segregated country clubs. (I emphatically exclude the Brocks from this category.)
At our Episcopal school, there were also few non-Christians, only a smattering of foreign students, and a small but robust cadre of Jewish girls. These friends generously invited me to Passover seders and to synagogue for special occasions, teaching me to love the decency and moral clarity of Judaism, particularly the socially conscious tradition of Tikkun Olam—repairing the world.
These insights came in handy when, at fourteen, I traveled with my dad and brother on a TWA Board of Directors’ trip to Egypt and Israel. It was late March 1979. We arrived just as the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty was signed in Washington and six months after the Camp David Accords. In Egypt, we cruised down the Nile River Valley from Luxor to Aswan, exploring the major tombs and historic sites. In Cairo, we visited the Antiquities Museum and the Great Pyramids at Giza.
From Egypt we flew to Israel on the first-ever direct flight between the two countries. We stayed at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem and visited the Old City, Temple Mount, and the Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem. Traveling east to Jericho and south to climb Masada, we floated in the Dead Sea and visited a working kibbutz. I loved Israel, with its energy, bustle, and idealism, and I felt later on, as a diplomat, that I was returning to a familiar place. In that fleeting moment in 1979, in contrast to my many later visits, Israel seemed like one of the most hopeful places on earth.
My own religious education came almost entirely from school, not home. While Dad had firmly rejected organized religion, Mom held on to her Episcopal faith mostly for purposes of weddings and funerals. From Beauvoir through graduation, I was steeped in the Episcopal Church, attending Friday services in the Cathedral and an additional chapel service during the week. Our parents left religion entirely to our own choice. While I was baptized Episcopalian as a baby, Johnny was not baptized at all. My mother confessed she felt badly about having left Johnny hanging but not enough that she rectified it. The Reverend John T. Walker, bishop of Washington through most of my time on the Cathedral Close, was a brilliant, socially committed, progressive African American leader, who helped draw me to the Episcopal Church. My faith deepened as I progressed in school such that, in eleventh grade, I decided to be confirmed.
Despite my confirmation, I can lay no claim to being a dutiful child of the cloth. Throughout high school, I continued to travel in the social crowd, seeking fun and a release from the pressures of family, school, and the wider world. Our partying became more frequent, and my friends and I became increasingly adept at hiding our escapades, even as we drank plenty of alcohol, smoked pot occasionally, and worse, drove intoxicated. Once, after our last exam of senior year, a large group of us celebrated by going drinking. After roaming the neighborhood, we returned to school where, overcome by nausea, I surreptitiously puked my guts out. Unable to make my own way, my friend Laura (who had not been drinking) drove me home in the late afternoon and deposited me in bed before Dad could discover what was up. I was never caught by my parents or teachers, nor do I think they even suspected me of wrongdoing.
Conscious at the time that I was living one step from catastrophe, I took risks in high school that back then seemed manageable, if slightly foolish. In retrospect, through the eyes of a mature adult and parent, I am struck by my own irresponsibility. Much as I still love a good throw-down and have used dance parties to break diplomatic ice, I look back on my teenage recklessness with due remorse.
This Washington, D.C., privat
e school social life later became infamous during Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Though I never met Kavanaugh in high school, he was my contemporary, and we have friends in common. Watching the testimony was traumatic, bringing back uncomfortable memories of this dangerous period filled with “BEER,” unauthorized parties, and sex. Neither I nor (to my knowledge) any of my good friends experienced sexual assault in high school, but we easily could have been assailed by drunken boys in much the same way as Dr. Christine Blasey Ford recounted, or worse. But for the grace of God…
In a separate matter, I deliberately lagged the crowd. Several friends chose to lose their virginity before graduation; I did not. Though I had high school boyfriends, I took my mother’s wisdom to heart without argument or question. “Susan,” she would say, “always treat your body as a temple. There is nothing more important than your self-esteem, and the quickest way to ruin it is to have cheap sex with someone you don’t really care for.” Her message was especially powerful, because she made sure I knew that she always had my back. “Please use birth control, but if something ever goes wrong, I’m here for you and you must come to me.” That was her mantra, and I heeded it.
In our highly competitive small school, college admissions were substantially a zero-sum game. Only two or three girls could expect acceptance to Harvard or Yale, which for many parents was the gold standard. Against this backdrop, I sensed that some parents of my classmates had suggested to their daughters, that because I was black, I would likely do well—better than I should—in the college admissions process. Their assumption that I would benefit from affirmative action, rather than succeed on the merits, stung and underscored these parents’ fundamental belief that I was less worthy than their daughters.
Touring colleges, I was drawn to Yale’s intellectual and social climate and decided to apply there “early action,” which would enable me to learn of their decision before Christmas but not have to commit until the regular admissions process played out in late April.
Pleased and relieved to receive an acceptance letter from Yale over the Christmas holiday, I decided also to apply to Stanford. Mom had taken me and Johnny to visit Stanford years earlier, and I recalled fondly the great weather, beautiful campus, and the whacky marching band whose albums I was given as a child by Fred Hargadon, the legendary dean of Stanford admissions. My mother did not share my attraction to Stanford, which she dismissed as too far from home and inferior to Harvard, her own alma mater. Indeed, in the early 1980s, except in California, Stanford was not yet widely viewed as being quite as good as the best Ivy League schools. Mom insisted that, if I were to apply to any more schools, I must also try at Harvard.
In mid-April, I faced what is fairly called a “high-class dilemma.” To help me decide, I visited Stanford again for the first time in years. I loved it—the sun, the fun, the easygoing attitude but serious academics—and didn’t care that it was not an Ivy League or far from home.
On the way back, my plane got diverted to Nebraska because of an April snowstorm in the East. I had to spend the night on the frigid floor of the Omaha airport, while I wondered all night—How am I going to forgive myself if I choose to go to New England and freeze my ass off from November through April? It also seemed like time for a break from the East Coast preppiness and pressure I had lived with all my life—a chance for fresh perspective and less stress.
Mom, however, was dead-set against what she and Alfred derisively called “Leland Stanford Junior University.” The heat was mounting from her, and it wasn’t pleasant. Dad was cool either way and could see the merits of Stanford, given his love of Berkeley.
Yale wisely gave me space to decide, but not Harvard. I kept receiving increasingly harassing calls from the local alumni interviewer of prospective applicants. He had recruited me for Harvard and, apparently, it was his responsibility to land this fish. In our last call, after hearing me explain that I was seriously considering Stanford, he reiterated how superior Harvard was. Finding me unmoved, he shouted into the phone, “How can you not go to Harvard??!!”
Amazed, my response was brief and sharp: “Watch me.” I then held my tongue, though I really wanted to add—How? Because of arrogant assholes like you. Instead, I packed up and moved to my godmother Peggy’s house for the duration of the college decision period, both to escape my mom and Mr. Harvard.
The day our decisions were due coincided with the annual joint National Cathedral School–St. Albans Cum Laude Cathedral Service, when the top students in both schools are inducted into the honor society. That morning, in the shower, I decided to go to Stanford. It felt right, and I was sure of my choice. At the start of the processional at the Cathedral, I spotted my college guidance counselor and gave her the news, asking her to stay mum, since I hadn’t yet told my parents.
After the service ended, I approached my mother and Alfred, who were sitting in the front of the Cathedral, with Dad nearby. Calmly, I said, “Mom, I’ve thought this through, and I’ve decided to go to Stanford.”
My mother’s face registered shock as she looked up at the immense stained glass window in the front of the nave and burst audibly and sloppily into tears, which both appalled and embarrassed me. Alfred comforted her. My dad congratulated me and moved on to dissociate himself from this insanity. To compound the trauma, the Harvard-educated father of a Harvard-bound classmate hugged my mother, consoling her with the words, “Oh Lois, I am so sorry.” As if her daughter had died. I walked away in disgust. Mom remained inconsolable.
Only years later did she concede the wisdom of my decision.
My senior year at NCS ended on an early June weekend devoted to Flag Day, the honors ceremony, and graduation. Rain had forced the traditional Flag Day ceremony from the beautiful grassy lawn into the cavernous Cathedral. All the graduating seniors assembled in the crossing of the Cathedral wearing long white dresses, each carrying a dozen red roses. My parents sat somewhere in the nave, proud and satisfied that I had done my best—with or without any final honors. As I prepared to leave the Cathedral Close after fourteen years of intense and powerful education, I felt both exhausted and fulfilled, yet confident I had developed the skills and the character to weather whatever might come next.
At Flag Day, I expected to win a couple of awards, maybe for history and for citizenship, but not The Flag. As the ceremony wound down, I had garnered some five awards, well exceeding my expectations. So, with little stress, I awaited the announcement of the last award, The Flag. I was surprised to hear “Susan Elizabeth Rice” announced as the winner, along with my classmate, Catherine Toulmin, whom I was betting would win it solo. It would not have occurred to me to aim quietly for The Flag, if not for Mrs. Williamson’s direct challenge in seventh grade.
That victory was sweet, especially because I imagined it would shut down the parents of some of my white classmates who were telling their daughters that I had gotten into the best colleges mainly because I was black. Their ease at dismissing my capabilities infuriated me and also engendered some dichotomous feelings about affirmative action. Now, it was clear: I may be black; but objectively by their standards, I was also the best. They had to deal with that.
My father’s daughter, I decided to let race be their problem, not mine.
5 Go West, Young Woman
Late in 2007, I took a lengthy leave from the Brookings Institution to serve full-time as an unpaid policy advisor, surrogate, and spokesperson for the Obama campaign.
One hotly debated issue arose around the same time, when Obama and his senior advisors wrestled with a proposal that the candidate make an extended foreign trip. The campaign had long seen the potential benefits of a major tour abroad, which was high-risk but, if successful, high-reward. It was an opportunity for Obama to show his command of foreign policy issues and to be seen as presidential overseas, while also demonstrating his popularity abroad to American voters at home, particularly those who lamented America’s diminished global leadership following the Iraq War.
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The political strategists on the campaign originally argued for a European trip in late 2007, before the Iowa caucuses. Tony Lake and I thought the trip was a great idea but that the proposed timing was a major mistake. In those days, Obama had no standing, not yet having won a single primary. He was behind in the polls, still relatively unknown abroad, and unlikely to be taken seriously by foreign counterparts. On a conference call with Obama and his senior advisors to debate the timing of the trip, I interjected at the end: “Senator, the trip is a good idea, but you should go next year after securing the nomination. Going now is like running the 1982 Berkeley lateral play through the Stanford Band at halftime rather than in the last seconds of the game.”
There were enough college football enthusiasts on the line for my point to land its punch. Folks were silenced for a short spell. Whether it was the effect of the analogy or surprise that the only woman on the call offered it, my logic seemed to prevail. Ultimately, Obama decided to wait until the summer of 2008 to take the trip.
Even once Obama was the nominee, such a trip promised to be a public relations and logistical high-wire act, especially without the policy support and infrastructure of the U.S. embassies. With campaign policy staff, my role was to help ensure that Senator Obama was prepared in substance for all of his bilateral meetings and that we got the policy right, while others coordinated our advance teams, transportation, and the large traveling press corps.
Following an official visit to Afghanistan and Iraq in his capacity as a U.S. senator, Obama continued on a campaign-sponsored swing through Jordan, Israel, Germany, France, and the U.K. I joined him throughout the campaign portion, mindful that, above all, we could not afford to make any mistakes.
In Israel, which was the trickiest leg of the journey, Obama deftly balanced his meetings with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, and with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank town of Ramallah. To underscore his concern for Israel’s security, Obama visited the southern Israeli town of Sderot, where Hamas rockets from Gaza regularly and cruelly rained down on Israeli homes. He paid his respects at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial, and placed a personal message in the Western Wall. Despite arriving just after a horrific bulldozer terrorist attack in Jerusalem, Obama’s visit proceeded smoothly.