Susan Rice, the first African-American woman named as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, brings to the job a lifetime’s work on international issues, an insider’s knowledge of the White House and State Department, and close ties to President-elect Barack Obama.
When Obama announced the appointment of his “close and trusted” senior foreign policy adviser to the U.N. post on Monday, he said Susan Rice would be a member of his Cabinet like some of her U.N. predecessors “and an integral member of my team.”
That could give Susan Rice – if she is confirmed by the Senate – a top spot in shaping U.S. foreign policy, a role she has prepared for since she was a Rhodes scholar studying international relations in the late 1980s.
Born in the nation’s capital, 44-year-old Susan Rice graduated from the National Cathedral School as valedictorian and student body president. According to The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, her father, Emmett J. Rice, a former governor of the Federal Reserve System, told her to “never use race as an excuse or advantage.”
In her acceptance speech Friday, Susan Rice thanked her father and mother, education scholar Lois Dickson Fitt, “who taught me that no dream is too bold to embrace.” She also thanked her husband, television producer Ian Cameron, and their two children.
Susan Rice has roots at Stanford University, where she received her bachelor’s degree, just like another famous African-American female foreign policy expert, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is no relation.
