Condoleezza Rice Talks Triumph, Political Healing During Fundraiser for Homeless Families

She tickled the crowd with her take on former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s reported crush on her. And she took the ballroom back in time with tales of growing up in a segregated South.

But it was when former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke about uplifting the weak—children in poverty, oppressed women and, the focus of the night, homeless families—that she brought the black-tie crowd to applause.

“Maybe it changes one life,” Rice said of each person’s contribution to the night’s fundraiser for the North County nonprofit Solutions for Change.

“But it changes one life,” she said. “And every life is precious.”

Rice was the keynote speaker at the Vista-based nonprofit’s fundraiser at the for the Finding Our Way Home campaign to place 200 families and their 400 children in homes.

Rice, who served as national security advisor and secretary of state under President George W. Bush, was introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) and spoke with a theme of hope for overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds.

She spoke of the past, present and future; of early settlers’ struggles heading west in covered wagons (“They had to be optimistic.”); of the Arab Spring revolutions in the Middle East; of the “audacious” goal of a future without homeless families.

“We are seeing the explosion of freedom,” Rice said. “It is not easy to institutionalize democracy, but it is necessary.”

As for the divided democracy that is the United States, Rice said that she believes the country can heal, that it must heal. A fractured U.S. will lead to one of two things, she said: chaos, or “somebody who will lead who doesn’t share our values.”

Those values, even the individualism that foreigners see as selfishness, are what make America unique in its compassion for the less fortunate, Rice said, citing the outpouring for AIDS and disaster relief.

Also, she added, compassion cannot come from the government or its programs, but from individual philanthropists who have an American communitarian spirit.

“That’s why America is exceptional,” Rice said.

During a brief Q&A session after her address, Rice was asked where the most help is needed in the world.

“Empowerment of women,” she said. “While there are a number of places that need help, if you ever run into a place where women are treated badly, it’s a dangerous place.”

Rice said educating women can help ease a number of problems. An educated woman won’t have her first child at 12 and have 10 children; she won’t be trafficked in Europe; she will be an advocate for women’s political rights; she, when given micro-loans, will employ people in her community, Rice said.

People can overcome circumstances that seem impossible, much like Rice did when she emerged from a segregated Birmingham, AL, to be the secretary of state, she said.

The same can be said for the homeless families Solutions for Change aims to help, she said. Even though it may seem like an audacious goal to end—not just put a dent in—homelessness, that is what America is best at achieving, Rice said.

“We have always been a people of big, ambitious goals,” she said.