The Art of Doing

Superachiever Connie Rice on Partnering with Enemy Number One

In order to fight for justice, LA’s civil rights activist/lawyer and second cousin to Condaleezza, Constance Rice believes you have to change the system from within.

Constance Rice

How to fight for Justice

When we spoke to civil rights activist and lawyer, Connie Rice (second cousin to Condaleezza), for our book, Rice gave us a manifesto on how to fight for justice.

In her mission to serve what she calls the impoverished “invisible people” of L.A., Rice had waged war for decades against the entrenched power centers of L.A.—the city, the LAPD— with innovatively crafted lawsuits. But after time she saw that although she was winning in the courts, she was losing in the streets.

Rice told us: “If you see a need for change, you have to ask yourself, ‘Who has the power to get it done?'” Continue reading “Superachiever Connie Rice on Partnering with Enemy Number One”

With MLK as Her Inspiration: How Constance Rice Fights for Justice

Civil rights lawyer and activist Constance Rice fights for justice on a large scale, devoting herself to changing the institutions that affect all of our lives.

Constance Rice, a L.A. civil rights activist and lawyer (who happens to be Condoleeza’s second cousin), has known from a very young age that she’s wanted to fight for justice.

When we interviewed her in our book (Chapter 14 “How to Fight for Justice”), Rice told us that she could have become a social worker or drug counselor helping one person at a time. Instead, inspired by Martin Luther King, Rice wanted to fight for justice on a larger scale. She devoted herself to changing the institutions that affect all of our lives—a process that King called a radical restructuring of our economic and political systems.

At first, Rice fought most of her battles in the courtroom, treating the police department and other institutions as adversaries. But inevitably she realized that she was winning in the courtroom but losing in the streets. She was not even coming close to achieving the radical restructuring King had inspired her to pursue. Continue reading “With MLK as Her Inspiration: How Constance Rice Fights for Justice”