10 Minutes With … Leslie Montgomery

c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) In her book, “The Faith of Condoleezza Rice,” author Leslie Montgomery explores the spiritual side of the U.S. secretary of state. Montgomery traced how Rice grew up in Birmingham, Ala., in the faith-filled home of her parents during the turbulent civil rights movement. Based on interviews with those close […]

c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) In her book, “The Faith of Condoleezza Rice,” author Leslie Montgomery explores the spiritual side of the U.S. secretary of state. Montgomery traced how Rice grew up in Birmingham, Ala., in the faith-filled home of her parents during the turbulent civil rights movement. Based on interviews with those close to Rice and Rice’s speeches, Montgomery describes a hymn-singing woman who has bridged faith and intellect as her career took her from Stanford University to the White House.

Montgomery talked about what she learned about Rice. Following are excerpts:


Q: Why did you decide to write this book?

A: I wrote a book three years ago called “Were It Not For Grace” and it featured 12 women who had … overcome tragedy through their faith, and Condi was one of the 12 women that I highlighted. It got me interested in her.

Q: What was the tragedy that she overcame?

A: She talked in that book about the deaths of her parents. She was very, very close to her parents, I mean, unusually close. She never had a baby sitter growing up apart from her maternal grandmother and so she did everything with her parents.

Q: Why did you choose to tie her life to the history of the civil rights movement?

A: Condi was born in Birmingham, Ala., in the midst of the civil rights movement, right in the vortex of the most heated time and her father was very active in the movement from a mentoring perspective.

A lot of her beliefs now have generated from that, such as her strong passion for the right to bear arms comes from the fact that when she was a kid her father, along with other neighborhood men, patrolled with shotguns to protect their cul-de-sac from the KKK.

Q: Can you describe how her family’s commitment to faith formed a foundation for her?

A: Her heritage is very rich in faith for generations and generations. Her paternal grandfather was a Presbyterian pastor and her father was a Presbyterian pastor.

Q: Rice literally grew up in the church, living in the residence attached to the back of the Presbyterian church where her father was pastor. What did you learn about that time of her life?


A: What they built in the back was a four-room apartment. It’s probably not more than 300 square feet, if that big. I saw it personally. I think it was just a time of great bonding with her parents.

Q: Did you interview her?

A: No, but she read through the book a couple of times when I finished and made some changes.

Q: How did her parents link their reading of the Bible to their life in a city torn by racism?

A: They told Condoleezza: “This is not your problem. This is the problem of people who want to segregate blacks and whites.” Her parents … just believed that God had a plan for Condi’s life and that plan was for good and not for evil.

Q: Rice is known for her love of music, and you note that the first song she learned on the piano was “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” How do you see the music of the church influencing her?

A: I know that some of her favorite songs are the old hymns. I think music is a very big part of her life and always will be. I’ve been told the piano bench in her Watergate complex is the most worn seat in her house.


I can’t imagine Condi not having music as a part of her life. Even now when she has her close family and friends over … they always end up around the piano and what they end up singing are old hymns.

Q: She has spoken of the bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church as a “sound that I can still hear today.” How did she link that attack in the 1960s to the more recent terrorist attacks on the United States?

A: She does compare them. She said that the race wars of the 1950s and the 1960s were what she refers to as homegrown terrorism. Both modern-day terrorism that we’re experiencing and what she experienced in Birmingham are similar in that they (terrorists) are trying to destroy people who are not like them. That’s one of the reasons she’s so passionate about democracy.

Q: Rice seemed to lean heavily on her faith when her mother was first diagnosed with breast cancer and when it recurred 15 years later. Can you describe how her faith changed during those times?

A: She realized that her intellect wasn’t going to be able to help herthrough her grief, and so it challenged her and forced her to cling to Jesus Christ during that time. …She finally came to peace because she accepted the truth in God’s word that says she will see her mother again in heaven.

Q: You mentioned she was concerned about not living her faith on “autopilot.” How did she avoid that?


A: She said her faith had become like putting a sweater on every day and the way that she has overcome that is by making sure that she’s spending one-on-one time with the Lord every day and making sure that instead of making all of her decisions from her perspective … (she was) seeking his wisdom.

Q: You mentioned that you had certain expectations of her faith. What surprised you most about her spiritual walk?

A: I think the first thing that surprised me was how rich her heritage was and also how deep her relationship is with God.

When I look at the news and I see Condi, she comes off pretty harsh, pretty direct. I was very suspicious and cautious about her having what I would say is a sincerity in her faith, and so I was really blessed and pleased to find that she really has given her heart and her life to the Lord and has a personal and passionate relationship with him.

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Editors: To obtain a photo of Leslie Montgomery or the cover of her book, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.

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