Rice says US remarkable for progress on race
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday that the United States is a remarkable country where a black woman like her can now rise to a position first held by a slave owner.
By Agencies |
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday that the United States is a remarkable country where a black woman like her can now rise to a position first held by a slave owner.
Rice spoke of hard-won progress when a reporter asked her about lessons learned since the start of the civil rights movement which is in the spotlight with the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination.
"The lesson Americans have learned since the civil rights movement is you have to work hard every day to make the extraordinary words, the moving and inspirational words of our founding documents, a reality for all Americans," she said.
"It doesn't just happen. It is a matter of reconciliation, it is also a matter of having laws that need to be upheld," Rice said when appearing for the cameras with Norway's visiting foreign minister Jonas Gahr Stoere.
"But I think Americans can also be very proud of this country and how far we've come. It's a remarkable country that I stand as Thomas Jefferson's successor several times removed," she said.
She greeted reporters in a room of the State Department where there hung a portrait of Jefferson, a slave owner who served as the nation's first secretary of state from 1790-1793.
Scientists have recently proven that Jefferson, who was also the author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States, had at least one child with one of his black slaves, Sally Hemings.
Colin Powell, the first black person to become secretary of state, preceded Rice in the job.
And in a close race for the Democratic Party's nomination for the White House, Barack Obama is the first black man to have a serious chance at becoming president of the United States.
Rice spoke of hard-won progress when a reporter asked her about lessons learned since the start of the civil rights movement which is in the spotlight with the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination.
"The lesson Americans have learned since the civil rights movement is you have to work hard every day to make the extraordinary words, the moving and inspirational words of our founding documents, a reality for all Americans," she said.
"It doesn't just happen. It is a matter of reconciliation, it is also a matter of having laws that need to be upheld," Rice said when appearing for the cameras with Norway's visiting foreign minister Jonas Gahr Stoere.
"But I think Americans can also be very proud of this country and how far we've come. It's a remarkable country that I stand as Thomas Jefferson's successor several times removed," she said.
She greeted reporters in a room of the State Department where there hung a portrait of Jefferson, a slave owner who served as the nation's first secretary of state from 1790-1793.
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Scientists have recently proven that Jefferson, who was also the author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States, had at least one child with one of his black slaves, Sally Hemings.
Colin Powell, the first black person to become secretary of state, preceded Rice in the job.
And in a close race for the Democratic Party's nomination for the White House, Barack Obama is the first black man to have a serious chance at becoming president of the United States.
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