Jean Rice (Interview 1)

Lewis: [00:00:01] Alrighty, so… Hello!
 
Rice: Hi sis!
 
Lewis: Could you tell me your name?
 
Rice: My name is Jean Rice [pronounces Jean with a French accent, Jawn] but people call me Jean [pronounced Jeen].
 
Lewis: Okay. And we are here in East Harlem. It's Friday, October—sixth, I believe?
 
Rice: Yes, tomorrow is the seventh.
 
Lewis: [00:00:30] [Laughs] And… Yeah! Why don't you tell me the story of why people call you Jean Rice, and not John Rice? [the English pronunciation, not the French]
 
Rice: [00:00:37] Oh… This story has pursued me all of my life. Because, as I’m sure most people know when you spell Jean—Jean, in the English tradition—it's usually a female, but in the French tradition when a Frenchman is named Jean, it's spelled Jean also. So, due to racial discrimination, when I was born on July 1st, 1939, in Anderson South Carolina under the separate but equal Percy vs. Ferguson doctrine, my mom wasn't able to go to a hospital and give birth to me. So, we had a French Creole midwife named Miss Emma Edwards who delivered me. And when I came into the world, and they saw my gender, she asked my mom, “It's a boy, what do you want to name him?” So, my mother said, “Name him after his father, John Rice.” And she spelled John, Jean.
 
Lewis: [00:01:44] So, tell me Jean, where did you grow up?
 
Rice: Well— actually, I'm a product of most of New York City with the exception of Staten Island. So, for instance, my first residence in New York City was in central Harlem on 141st Street between Lenox and Seventh [Avenue]. But at the same time my cousins lived at 1056 Kelly St. in the Bronx, and we would alternate weekends. Like, one weekend I would be dispatched to Kelly Street in the Bronx to spend the weekend with Lillie and Caesar, and the next weekend they would come to Central Harlem and spend the weekend with me.
 
Rice: [00:02:32] So that tradition, got enlarged or expanded upon, when the family relocated to Brooklyn, where my eldest aunt, Aunt Bertha Coleman, the late Bertha Coleman, lived in the Kingsborough housing project. And as the eldest sister, she always wanted the family to be closer, geographically. So, my Aunt Laura—Lillie, and Caesar’s mother—moved from 1056 Kelly Street to Brooklyn. And we moved from central Harlem to Brooklyn. So, I spent most of my adolescence in Brooklyn.
 
Rice: [00:03:16] And then the family evolved to South Jamaica, Queens. Again, my Aunt Bertha's husband, the late Cecelus Herman Coleman, was one of the first Afro Americans in New York City to get a job with the Metropolitan Transit Authority—so long ago that he drove the trolley, when it had the two prongs and the overhead, electronic thing… And we were so proud of him! He looked so sophisticated and dapper in his uniform and sometimes we would just find a spot in his trolley route to watch him as he drove by on the trolley in his splendid uniform and when we'd get him to stop the trolley and get off and pose with us... Uncle Cecelus!
 
Rice: [00:04:06] But anyway, when he died of cancer, he left enough financial support for the family, Aunt Bertha, and her children, to buy a home in South Jamaica, Queens. So, we used that as a pivotal point, and later a lot of the family, also moved to Queens. So, I grew up between Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens… Not—and not Staten Island at all.
 
Lewis: [00:04:49] What was so splendid about his uniform?
 
Rice: The uniforms symbolized—to us, that he had entered America's mainstream. Remember, I alluded to—growing up, my early childhood, my earliest recollection, was down in Anderson South Carolina—strongly influenced by the Plessy versus Ferguson, Separate but Equal Doctrine. So, to us it was a big deal, when we came to New York, where discrimination was more subtle, and less overt.
 
Rice: [00:05:36] And to us, he was a role model. That if Uncle Cecelus could evolve, and acculturate and assimilate into the mainstream like that, with education and hard work, we could too. And you could it in see our tradition—Cousin Lillie, my first cousin closest to being my sister, she later put in twenty plus years with transit and retired, and bought her house in Laurelton, Queens. I think Uncle Cecelus's presence had a lot to do with motivating the younger generation in my family.
 
Lewis: [00:06:24] When—what year was it that you moved up here from South Carolina—Anderson, South Carolina to New York?

Rice: [00:06:32] I remember emphatically—1944. Because—the reason why it's hard to forget… 1944, World War II.
 
Rice: [00:06:43] And in the defense industry, there was employment opportunities that Afro Americans, with unions being so prejudiced… So, because of the defense effort Afro Americans were able to get jobs in industry through the defense plants. My mom worked briefly for General Electric. My Aunt Willie worked in the Defense industry. So, these were major breakthroughs. It's just tragic that it took a war to open up these opportunities. Also tragic, that after the war was over, the unions reverted back to discriminatory practices. But during the time that I came in 1944, I remember that the defense industry opened employment opportunities for Afro Americans.
 
Rice: [00:07:53] I remember, during that period, my uncles, gathered around this oval shaped radio, listening to events, like Billy Kahn and Joe Louis fighting. That classic fight… Billy Kahn was known for the European style of boxing—classic boxer. And Joe Louis was looked at by white status quo, as just being a buffoon, ignorant, a puncher, but he had a lot of common sense. And my uncle quoted him, because when they interviewed Joe Louis about would he attempt to counter the classic style of Billy Kahn, he said, “He can run but he can't hide.” [Laughter] So, straight forward, cut off the ring, and cornered him and knocked him out. I remember that

Rice: [00:08:53] and I remember forty-seven when Jackie Robinson broke into the major leagues, because my uncles were baseball enthusiasts and they instilled that in me. Right now, I'm an avid lover of baseball. So that period, from forty-four to fifty-one, a lot of major events happened that etched a permanent place in my memory.

Lewis: [00:09:24] And you were living where at the time?
 
Rice: Well, 141st Street between Lenox and Seventh, most of the mid to late-forties. And we moved to Brooklyn, fifty, fifty-one.

Lewis: The apartment that you guys lived in
 
Rice: In Harlem?
 
Lewis: Mm-hmmm.  
 
Rice: [00:09:47] What apartment?! [Smiles] First it was an apartment, that Aunt Willie had—seven rooms, railroad flat. But everybody had their space. And it wasn't about monetary ability. It was that, if you belonged to our family, you had to a space there as long as the family together, could hold down the overhead of maintaining that apartment—rent, food, whatever. So, you didn't have to worry about survival, as long as you could get to 108 West 141st Street, apartment fifty-two.
 
Lewis: [00:10:29] All right. And—was that the only reason that you… Did your mom come up here first, and then you came later?
 
Rice: No.
 
Lewis: Tell me how that happened.
 
Rice: [00:10:40] My grandfather influenced our migration... Great man! He—my grandfather D.M. Sloane was a funny person. Because people in our church congregation used to laugh at him because they thought he was being exploited, because he was a sharecropper for this man named Frazier, Mr. Bud Frazier. But—and he would always, when they do the counting, which was twice a year, he would always get cheated! _But _he wasn't [smiles] that docile and submissive, because he had his own underground economy.  
 
Rice: [00:11:30] Because on the part of property he sharecropped, he built a liquor still. [Smiles] And my uncles were his distributors, and they distributed moonshine from Anderson, South Carolina, across the border into Georgia. And he had three Mason jars, that we used to use to make fruit preserves—he'd put them over the mantel piece of our fireplace, and he saved money! And that saved money—and helped his daughters, in order, the oldest one first— Aunt Bertha, the middle daughter second—Aunt Laura, and my mother was the baby daughter—last.
 
Rice: [00:12:19] So, when Aunt Bertha came to New York, she was the first one. She was married to Uncle Cecelus, and they came first. And then, like I said, Uncle Cecelus had some college education—he went to Tuskegee, and he learned how to be a tailor but then when he got to New York, like I said, he went into the transit system and drove the trolley.
 
Rice: [00:12:52] But! Because of that, they were able to get into the housing projects. And at that time, the housing projects was considered middle class. And they lived in the six walk in Brooklyn, in Kingsborough projects for a long time. Then by the time I came, they were no longer in the six walk, they had moved to the seventh walk, and they lived—719 Kingsborough projects, apartment 4B.
 
Lewis: Mm-hmmm.
 
Rice: [00:13:25] So, because my aunt was the eldest female, her apartment became like the family organizational hub. So, on major holidays, my Aunt Laura would bring Lillie and Caesar, Jr. from the Bronx, 1056 Kelly Street. My mom would bring me, from 108 West 141st Street, and we would all converge at 719 Kingsborough Projects, apartment 4B. And we would get there a day ahead of the family gathering—and my Aunt Bertha [smiles] could make the best homemade ice cream. And we didn't even have the electric churn then, you had to crank it. And then we got to get the ice, and the preparation she would put into it, the way she made the custard for the ice cream… All of that! And my mother's specialty was upside down pineapple cake, and my Aunt Laura made the coconut cake. So, we all—we did that during the wintertime, the winter holiday season.
 
Rice: [00:14:38] And during the summer, we would go to Prospect Park and have a family picnic. So, I think these family gatherings was important to me as an only child, because my first cousins came to be like my sisters and brothers to me—that close. But also, it formulated the family structure, the cohesiveness that kept us together. Because I think that Afro American family structure and connection with the Black church is basically, two dominant—predominant reasons why Afro Americans didn't wind being diminished like Native Americans.
 
Rice: [00:15:35] I think that, were it not for the historical structuring of the Black family—contrary to the status quo saying that the Black families are dysfunctional—and especially when the male and the female are separated, that one parent families tend to contribute to delinquency etc. etc. Well, we got to think about, during slavery, how many Black families lost one parent to one plantation where they were sold off, and another parent went, but the Black family structure still survived.
 
Rice: [00:16:18] And so that's one of the reasons why I am opposed to Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Heather MacDonald and them talking about, “Single Afro American moms can't raise a productive family.” So, I'm proud of my family structure. I'm proud of the fact that we emerged—in one generation—from sharecroppers to working for transit. My cousin Barbara, who helped raise my youngest grandson Kyle, has a degree in social work from York College. One generation! In one generation, from sharecropping to homeowners. So… I use my family a lot as a model to counter this thing about generational, institutionalized welfare dependency, incarceration, antisocial behavior. Families can break through that.
 
Rice: [00:17:27] Unfortunately, the mainstream media, with their concern about sensationalism they [pauses] are not hesitant to produce stories about families that fell through the cracks. But from my personal experience in the Black community, for every family that resorted to something that's deemed antisocial, or dysfunctional, there are other families like my family that didn't fall between the cracks. Those families don't get enough recognition, those single moms, those single dads.
 
Rice: [00:18:16] I mean, I got one shining example too, right in my organization! Andres Perez is raising his son—who, when he came to Picture the Homeless, this kid was dysfunctional—what they would call dysfunctional. But then through my experience with my youngest grandson, all you have to do was challenge this kid, and keep him occupied. And there are other kids like that. The school curricula that doesn't challenge them… When they get bored, they get mischievous—and then you want to give them Ritalin or whatever? No, the curricula should be more relevant, and challenge the kid’s mentality more.
 
Lewis: [00:18:57] When you talk—you’re talking about media and how Black families are represented.
 
Rice: Misrepresented, if you will.
 
Lewis: Right. Does that serve an agenda? And what might that agenda be?
 
Rice: Well, ever since the Kerner Commission report, about causes of civil disorder, the status quo in America—controlled by white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, the WASP element—have concentrated on population control more than social change and aiding acculturation, assimilation, and upward mobility.
 
Rice: [00:19:52] It's been long recognized that the reason why one percent of America can control all the major institutions of the remaining segment of America is through splits and divisions. And the way that you accomplish splits and divisions, is through population control. And that—through, the splits and divisions, i.e., population control, the one percent maintains its hegemony over the society at large.
 
Lewis: Hmmmmm. So, one of the things that I want to ask, and you know—we'll do many of these interviews
 
Rice: [Smiles] I'm sure, you not going to ever stop being my sister! [Laughing]
 
Lewis: [00:20:41] [Smiles] So, we went to your cousin Lillie's son's funeral in a church—where your mom and your Aunt, Lillie's mother, your Aunt Laura, were founding—were founding members. Could you—you want to share a little bit about the history, that history?
 
Rice: [00:21:06] Again… This is part of the tradition that my family brought from Anderson, South Carolina, from Wilson Calvary Baptist Church—which is our family church in Anderson, South Carolina, and it's still there.
 
Rice: [00:21:25] So—when my family met this evangelist, named Reverend Pen. I forgot his first name, but anyway… He was founding a ministry in Bed Stuy, and he started in the Spring—in what we call a tent. And people that were attracted to his ministry, came to the tent. But he had objectives and goals. So, they had a building fund, and at the end of every service, he would announce his plan.
 
Rice: [00:22:13] And he wasn't just coming to evangelize and take the money and go to another city to evangelize, like a lot of evangelists do. He made it emphatic that he wanted to be a permanent part of Bedford Stuyvesant, which was then going through this Brownsville/Ocean Hill community control.
 
Rice: [00:22:37] So, through my mother and Lillie's mom, my aunt Laura—Aunt Bertha was still in Queens, but we were in Brooklyn—so, they decided to lend their experience through belonging to Wilson Calvary Baptist Church in Anderson, to helping him to stabilize his presence in central Brooklyn. So, they did things like made dinners, and he would take his car and deliver the dinners. And that went to the building fund. They would give gospel programs, where my mother would invite young gospel singers like Jose Williams and The Brooklyn All Stars. They would print tickets—that would be a fundraiser. So eventually, they were able to get a storefront, from the tent. And then from the storefront… The church that now stands on Eastern Parkway.
 
Lewis: And what's the name of the church?
 
Rice: I think it's the Holy House of Prayer.
 
Lewis: [00:23:48] Where did your mom and your aunt make the food?
 
Rice: In their house. In their kitchens. And Lillie and I, not so much Lillie's brother Caesar, but Lily and I, [smiles] would help with the preparation, like peeling the onions, cutting up the potatoes. [Laughing] So… And it is so inspiring, so motivational—that even though Lillie’s mom, the late Laura Sutherland has passed on, that the dining hall at that church, in the portal, the entrance—says, “Laura Sutherland Dining Hall.” That's institutionalized! That will be there!
 
Lewis: Mm-hmmm.
 
Rice: [00:24:38] That's part of what motivated me—and I'm so proud… That as long as Picture the Homeless exists, the Jean Rice Reference Liberation Library will be there. Because, if our creator, gives us a long tenure on Earth, I think it's a obligation for us to leave our footprint in the sands of time. Something so that the future generations that come, will know that we were there. So, everybody that goes after a service, that goes through that dining hall, will have to ponder the thought, who was Laura Sutherland?
 
Rice: [00:25:19] At Union Theological Seminary! When you go to their dining space, in the upper level of Union Theological—there's this huge room called the Bonhoeffer room, and a picture of Derrick Bonhoeffer. And I've been there a lot of times when the Poverty Initiative has entertained out of town guests, and they ask, “Who was Derrick Bonhoeffer?”
 
Rice: [00:25:48] And I'm so proud, that through my sister Lynn Lewis giving me an assignment [smiles] one time to go with sister Tyletha Samuels to Union, where I met Art Trotman—and Art Trotman for many semesters paid my tuition and bought books, so that I would know who Derrick Bonhoeffer… And I always was fascinated and motivated by the fact that here was a German, Derrick Bonhoeffer, born into a German aristocracy, came to America in pursuit of theological studies.
 
Rice: [00:26:28] Studied at Union Theological Seminary under Reinhold Niebuhr and met an Afro American classmate at Union, who introduced him to the Abyssinian Baptist Church, where Adam Clayton Powell Sr. was a minister. And that when Bonhoeffer went with this Afro American classmate to Abyssinia, he was so impressed by the social justice ministry of Adam Clayton Powell Sr., that he took a lot of that ideology—and the songs—back to Germany with him.
 
Rice: [00:27:10] And—but the thing is, that people—acquaintances that he met in America… When he got ready to go back and confront Hitler, they were saying, “Derrick, with—Dietrich, with your ideology, Hitler will kill you! Stay here with us!” Reinhold Niebuhr advised him not to go back, Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. advised him not to go back. But he said that his faith and his destiny was in the hands of his Creator.
 
Rice: [00:27:44] And there’s certain things, that if you're going to be true to yourself, and true to your ideology, that you don't have a choice about. So, Dietrich Bonhoeffer winded up returning to Germany, participating in the attempted, failed assassination of Adolf Hitler. They discovered his part that he played in a conspiracy, and he got executed by Hitler—SS, just days before World War Two came to an end.
 
Lewis: I’m going to adjust your mic right now.
 
Rice: So, Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of my heroes.
 
Lewis: [00:28:25] You mentioned the Picture the Homeless liberation library. Maybe you could talk about that a little bit. What is that? What was that and what role did you play in it? [Smiles] How did that happen?
 
Rice: [00:28:37] Well, through my studies I found my own methodology about scholarship. You learn a lot about an institution, if you study its origins and the background of the people who are charged with the teaching experience. So, for instance, a lot of major colleges got their start from the slave trade. So, that means that a lot of the major colleges were founded by white supremacists. So, if you're on the board of an institution like that, and you're recruiting teachers, who do you recruit? People with a similar ideology. So, through prestigious colleges like Harvard, like Columbia, with white supremacist teachers on their faculty, engaging in the study of eugenics...
 
Rice: [00:29:54] I said, a lot of this is not education. A lot of this is indoctrination. And then I was inspired by the words of the late Malcolm X that said, “If you expect your adversary to educate you and give you a job, you're in sad shape.”
 
Rice: [00:30:14] So, based on those two components, I said—well, my beloved Picture the Homeless, we cannot depend on our adversaries to educate us to the point where we can liberate ourselves. So, we have to develop a formula, and a curricula, and a culture and an atmosphere, where we can truly educate ourselves, and move our brain past indoctrination to education. And then we can be in the vanguard of a movement that will succeed in making America live up to its original credo.
 
Lewis: [00:30:59] So, tell me about Picture the Homeless.
 
Rice: [Pause] My beloved Picture the Homeless. [Smiles] Well, I have a first cousin who I don't see that frequently anymore, named [long pause] Warren?
 
Lewis: Prince? [Smiles]
 
Rice: [00:31:22] Prince Warren—Alright, Warren Prince… So, we were sharing living quarters at the time, and he kept coming home after he did his tour of where he engaged in retrieving recyclable containers—and I had another area, where I did the same function. So, at the end of the night, we would meet at… Where we shared living quarters.
 
Rice: [00:31:53] And—for like—a month, every Wednesday night, he'd say, “Man, I met… When I get to West 4th Street and I meet this guy named Anthony Williams, and he's telling me about this organization, called Picture the Homeless. So, I say, “Yeah?” “Well, he wants us to come to a meeting.” “Why should I do that?”
 
Rice: [00:32:22] So then, during the same period, ironically, the… Giuliani, Mayor Giuliani had started this Quality-of-Life offense. Where if you appeared to be undomiciled, you were imperiled. If you, on a hot day like today, if you stop halfway through your tour and opened up a beer bottle, you were criminalized.
 
Rice: [00:32:54] And if you went to Yankee Stadium and retrieved multiple cans, sodas, beer, all kind of recyclable containers... And in the course of that, when the people that you met, in the parking lot during the tailgate party that they usually did before going into the game… So usually, at the tailgate party they would have surplus beer. So, when they got ready to go into the stadium, they would say, “Hey you guys look like you work hard. Take this beer.” So, Warren Prince and I would drink multiple beers  
 
Rice: [00:33:29] And then between transit, carrying the recyclable containers from the stadium—to Harlem, 141st Street, where we would store them overnight. And then we store up, pay some superintendent to put them in the basement, and then we’d go to Brooklyn. But in the course of that, we would drink multiple beers. And almost always, we would have to urinate somewhere along Seventh Avenue between Yankee Stadium and 142nd Street… And to our dismay, almost _all the time, _either Warren Prince, or myself, or both of us, would get caught urinating in public.
 
Rice: [00:34:19] And Giuliani had made that a criminal offense. Picture the Homeless was fighting against quality-of-life offenses that criminalized normal behavior that domiciled New Yorkers could do—like urinating in their house, like drinking a beer. And through the criminalization of the homeless community and implementation of these quality-of-life offenses, these acts were deemed antisocial and criminalized! So, that was one point.  
 
Rice: [00:34:57] And then after Giuliani left and Bloomberg came in—business acumen, he called all the city department heads and said, “I want to know which departments are in the red, and which ones are in the blue.” So, the Sanitation Department was in the red at the time. And they contributed the blame to the cost of the recycle better bottle bill industry. So, Bloomberg said, “Get rid of it!” I mean, “It’s red, get rid of it!” Never mind causes—why… Never mind reform. Nobody wanted to look into… That it was ecologically sound—that you're taking a recyclable fossil material and putting it back instead of having to dig for more and rape the Earth. “No—get rid of it!”  
 
Rice: [00:36:02] That’s… Then I heard Prince. Because again, in addition to Picture the Homeless being opposed to the Quality-of-Life laws that criminalized homelessness, they also was opposed to Bloomberg getting rid of the Better Bottle Bill. And that got my attention because that was my pocket. That was my money! [Laughs]  
 
Rice: [00:36:22] Then I went to the meeting [smiles] and I met Anthony, outside the Judson Memorial Church, prior to the meeting, on a Wednesday—first time… And to orientate me, my orientation took place at a place called The Baggott Inn. And our Holy Communion was Black and Tans. [Laughs] And after that, that time we were punctual, he said, “Okay, let's go to the meeting.”
 
Rice: [00:36:51] And Anthony introduced me—that's when I met my sister Lynn Lewis. I met Emily Givens and some core members that were there, at that time. Our other co-founder wasn't that meeting, Lewis Haggins, but he was still alive.

Rice: [00:37:13] So, because I had had the opportunity to pursue higher education—again family  motivated—and I had studied Public Administration as a major, Criminal Justice Administration as a strong minor. So, I'd had had some studying American constitutional law, etc. So, because I knew about the Fourteenth Amendment, and ba-ba-ba, Lynn and Emily [smiles] and Anthony just drafted me! Like, you need me! I got drafted.
 
Rice: [00:37:55] But I loved it because—seriously, it gave me the opportunity to use knowledge that I thought I would never be able to use in a positive way. I was able to use that knowledge to contribute to progressive social change and equal justice, and I'm still doing that.
 
Lewis: Mm-hmmm… Do you have—I'm sure you have many favorite stories. But do you have something that comes to mind, a Picture the Homeless story that comes to mind?
 
Rice: [00:38:28] Oh man—it's several, but if I consolidate them, the things that mean the most to me are not the individual accomplishments, like helping to be a founding member of the Picture the Homeless board, helping to be a founding member of our civil rights committee. What I get the most satisfaction from, is the victories that Picture the Homeless has achieved that affected multitudes of homeless people.  
 
Rice: [00:39:05] For instance, defending the Better Bottle Bill, and getting it expanded to where it includes plastic water bottles. And when I walk down the street people that [smiles] don't even know me, they don't even know Picture the Homeless—they're lined up at these reverse vending machines, that I could remember when they weren't available. And they are getting revenue without confrontation, without being—dehumanized… And that's—that gives me great satisfaction.
 
Rice: [00:39:42] And when we win the right for homeless people not to be victims of selective enforcement in public space… [Smiles] Those are the kinds of victories that mean the most to me because it impacts the most people. And I got that concept from my training in public administration. That impacts the common good.
 
Rice: [00:40:05] And the other side of that is—biblically—there is Scripture that said, “That which you do for the least among you, consider you did it unto me, and I will reward you tenfold.” So, my public administration credo—the common good. My Christian credo? The Brotherhood of Man... I put them together and I come up with, “Jean, stay with Picture the Homeless.” [Laughter]
 
Lewis: [00:40:33] When you were living with Prince in Brooklyn. What was your place like?
 
Rice: Well, Prince’s uncle by marriage, had this house on Halsey Street, in Brooklyn, right—like four blocks away from the Kingston Throop subway line, the A line. And the uncle lived on the bottom floor, and Prince and I lived on the second floor. So, we had a front room, and we shared the bathroom with another tenant that lived in the back room. We had kitchen facilities, and we shared the same bed, except when we weren't getting along too good and then I would sleep on the couch.
 
Rice: [00:41:36] But, it taught me a lot about how to deal with sharing a compact space with another homo sapien… Enough that, even though it wasn't always stressful, I came away from that appreciating the song, that I first heard by Billie Holiday called, God Bless the Child that's Got His Own. [Laughter] So even though I love staying—being an overnighter at my youngest daughter Kim's house... There are times that I've spent the night at my sister Lynn's house… There are times that I spent the weekend in the basement of my first cousin/sister Lillie's house. But it's a great satisfaction to know you got a key around your neck in New York City. You got a key around your neck and your name is on a lease. So that when the socialization period is over, you can go to your own spot. So, it makes me value my own space.  
 
Lewis: [00:42:54] Where were you living—where were you laying your head before you moved in with Prince?
 
Rice: Oh! I wasn't stabilized at all—it was different places. Sometimes I would stay with my… I lived with my youngest daughter Kim for about a year, when I had a brief one-year term of employment with a place in Queens called Community Mediation. So, I couldn't see traveling from Manhattan to Queens every day. So, against policy, I moved in with my daughter, and gave her a little stipend. And my daughter lives, and she’s still there, on 193rd Street and Jamaica Avenue. But my job was on 168th Street and Jamaica Avenue. So, on a Summer day, or nice Spring day, it was a short walk from my daughter's house to my place of employment. And in the winter, I could take the bus straight down Jamaica Avenue and I was at work.
 
Rice: [00:44:04] But unfortunately, that program had its limits—because one of the provisos was the Department of Aged in New York City paid minimum wage for one year, but then after a year, if the agency that was employing you could not put you on their payroll, you were terminated.
 
Rice: [00:44:37] So, I worked for Community Mediation on 168th Street and Jamaica Avenue for a year—but it enhanced my ability at Picture the Homeless to deescalate situations. My training at community mediation had a lot to do with how I approach being a police negotiator for Picture the Homeless when we planned for, or did, an action/demonstration.
 
Rice: [00:45:22] For instance, a lot of organizations who have police negotiations, they think their job is to be anti-police. That's not the job of the police negotiator, to me. To me my job as a police negotiator is deescalate the situation, and that's directly connected to the training at community mediation, where in a domestic matter—you're not there to decide who’s right and who’s wrong. You're there to deescalate the situation—that might be inflammatory and lead to violence.
 
Rice: [00:46:02] So, when I am honored to be the police negotiator for Picture the Homeless, I try to deescalate the tension between the police officers who don't know why we are there or what we are there for, and you give my organization two things—safety and security and time to deliver the message. So far, with the help of Lynn Lewis and Sam, I've been pretty good at that. [Smiling]
 
Rice: [00:46:32] So much so, that other organizations have—when we do a coalition action—other organizations have asked me to be part of the planning and pre-action conference. To—if I'm not there as the designated police negotiator, to advise the person that they choose to do it. And I'm proud of that because, with the exception of one time when we chose to get incarcerated and became the infamous Picture the Homeless Eight—other than that, we have a pretty good record of not being abused by the police during that—physically abused during an action.
 
Rice: [00:47:24] None of our members… And none of our members have been incarcerated or convicted. Matter of fact the time I just referred to when we was the infamous Picture the Homeless Eight, it's the only time that I've been involved in a criminal justice process, where my adversaries dropped the case without me even going inside the courtroom.
 
Lewis: [00:47:54] What was that action? Tell me about that.
 
Rice: Ah! There's this—one of many vacant lots that Picture the Homeless had focused on, and we made a tent city. At the beginning of the planning session, I don't remember having knowledge that JP Morgan Chase owned that lot. I think somewhere in the planning session or maybe during our defense after we got arrested, we found out that JP Morgan Chase owned that property.
 
Rice: [00:48:37] And in my experience with Picture the Homeless has been ironic. I didn't know then—I didn't know the connection, between J.P. Morgan Chase speculating on that site, and their antisocial behavior subsidizing in Appalachia—a company called Massey mining. That through the funds provided by J.P. Morgan Chase, they were participating in mountaintop removal in Appalachia—that's an ecological disaster.
 
Rice: [00:49:20] So! Picture the Homeless and God led me on an immersion trip to Appalachia, where I met this guy named [laughs] Larry Gibson, who I nicknamed the little leprechaun. But he was a giant in spirit. He was a holdout. He wouldn't sell his family property in Appalachia to Massey mining so they could use his family property to continue the process of mountaintop removal.
 
Rice: [00:49:57] And through that interaction with Picture the Homeless, I was able to connect the antisocial conduct of J.P. Morgan Chase on the issue of affordable housing to the antisocial social stance with J.P. Morgan Chase providing financial subsidization to Massey Mining—who were polluting the air in Appalachia. So, when Picture the Homeless later, was opposed to J.P. Morgan Chase and Jamie Dimon, when we went in front of his luxurious condominium and protested—it wasn't on a whim! We were protesting antisocial behavior of a major banking institution, J.P. Morgan Chase! The Harriman Family, the Rockefeller family.
 
Rice: [00:51:07] This is part of the status quo that determines policy that turns out to be detrimental to the common good. So—so, through Picture the Homeless, we were able to introduce Larry Gibson to Reverend Billy! And as a result of that Reverend Billy made a trip to Appalachian where I went to visit Larry Gibson. [Smiles]
 
Rice: [00:51:30] But Reverend Billy was more creative than Jean Rice. Reverend Billy came back with some Appalachia soil and went to J.P. Morgan Chase headquarters and threw that soil [laughs] in the lobby and got arrested. And I'm glad that Lynn Lewis gave me an assignment when Larry Gibson was doing his speech, anti-mountaintop removal speech—at some College in Queens. And I was privileged to take Reverend Billy and introduce him to Larry Gibson. [Smiles]
 
Rice: [00:52:03] So, I mean, when you look at major structural changes that have happened since 1999. Globally! Globally! Picture are Homeless—seldom heard of, but often our footprint is there. From Istanbul—where people that are trying to reform a process that is not in the common good, when the people that fell between the cracks, where people end up being criminalized or vandalized—having their rights, basic human rights trampled upon... When they come all the way from Istanbul to New York City and seek Picture the Homeless out—and use us as a model. When the Shackdwellers from South Africa come to Picture the Homeless and use us as a model! I mean, I sometimes get that Urkel complex and say, “Gee! Did we do that?!” It's unbelievable that where God and this chain of events has led my organization and I'm proud to be part of that.
 
BREAK [Long pause]
 
Lewis: [00:53:28] Alright. So, we took a little break. How are you?
 
Rice: Oh—my mind is just... This is mind boggling. I'm so enthused about the potential of this project.
 
Lewis: [00:53:45] You had mentioned on our break, some of the things that really resonated with you. And one of the things you mentioned was the connection between the Picture the Homeless mission statement and the Fourteenth Amendment. And you mentioned—when you first came to Picture the Homeless at the first meeting, how you had talked about the Fourteenth Amendment. [Smiles] So, what is it with the Fourteenth Amendment and the mission statement Jean?
 
Rice: [00:54:15] Well, the Fourteenth Amendment is important to me, as an Afro American citizen of the United States. Because the Fourteenth Amendment is part of what they call the Reconstruction amendments. Which means, after the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation… The ruling class then—Abraham Lincoln… Douglas, Stanton—they thought that to make the new freedom of these former slaves… To give it—make it more secure and more meaningful, it had to have some legislative basis. So, the three Reconstruction amendments were put into law and added to our constitution with that thought in mind—giving the newly freed slaves equal footing, so they could acculturate, assimilate, and move on toward upward mobility.
 
Rice: [00:55:45] So to synopsize, the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal protection of the law for all U.S. citizens. My mission statement at Picture the Homeless says that we oppose laws that criminalize any citizen because of race, creed, da-da-da-da-dada, and that has a commonality to the Fourteenth Amendment—saying all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of  the United States and are entitled to the following.
 
Rice: [00:56:29] So, as we at Picture the Homeless struggle to pass progressive legislation toward making un-domiciled New Yorkers equal in status and standing—to New Yorker's who are more fortunate _and housed… _I can't help but compare homeless New Yorker's to newly freed slaves.
 
Rice: [00:57:07] And there—there again, I'm saying, if only we could move the Justice Department in Washington and the criminal justice enforcement agents in New York City more locally, to rigidly enforce the concepts of the Fourteenth Amendment. Then, at the same time simultaneously, because of the many commonalities, they would be enforcing provisions of my mission statement. So, because Picture the Homeless is limited in its human and financial resources, I often wonder why can't we just make sure that the Fourteenth Amendment is strictly adhered to, and all this other stuff will fall into place.
 
Rice: [00:58:04] So, again… Where we seek to make structural change instead of cosmetic changes… Take for instance this new concept of our allies—well intentioned. They think that getting the police to wear body cams is going to ensure transparency and accountability… But again, the Kerner Commission report… The Mollen Commission, the Knapp Commission. Three separate commissions! But they all agree on one profound fact. That the police cannot be trusted to police the police. So, if the police cannot be trusted to police the police, a body cam worn by police officer who in his discretion could turn it on and off—that's the police policing the police! That's contrary to the advice of these three independent commissions.
 
Rice: [00:59:20] I'm pushing—and with the support of Picture the Homeless, that through block associations and tenant patrols, that we coordinate the streetlights with street cameras, that are controlled by the tenants, the community—just like they do when I'm going down to Grand Central. That whole perimeter around Grand Central is under constant surveillance. That's more impartial and more objective than a police officer who can turn the body cam on and off, at their whim. So, these are just ideas that come to mind as I observe the environment in the city in which I live.  
 
Rice: [01:00:13] And some of the challenges… While I'm sitting here doing this interview with my sister, I have a weekend assignment from my civil rights coordinator, Mr. Nikita Price, to put in writing why I'm not enthused about bodycams. I'm going to do that—I'm going to start to work with that when I leave here and go home. Because it's not so much whether my ego and my vanity is adhered to by my ideas being implemented in the public policy arena. But I want to give people cause to think through policy.
 
Rice: [01:01:03] And again—I'm drawing my—my opinion… Not from some radical Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm X… Again, the Kerner Commission—first, chronologically—said there needs to be police reform. Police brutality and police accountability is part of the reason for civil unrest—Kerner Commission. Then the Knapp Commission! More local, the Kerner Commission was a national Commission. The Knapp Commission with a city commission. But again! Police reform needs to be looked at. And after the Knapp Commission, we had ten years later, the Mollen Commission, saying the same thing.
 
Rice: [01:02:07] So, as we contemplate these reforms, we have to think about the origins of the police mission in the United States of America. How… They were instituted to serve the ruling class—protect business and property. That mission hasn't changed that much, and it needs—never mind retraining—you need to go back to structure! My mission statement, “structural change”, and we need to create a police mission nationally that speaks to the diversity of population now.
 
Rice: [01:02:57] We're no longer living in a society where the Fugitive Slave law is the law of the land. Where police agents are encouraged—not only encouraged but pushed to engage in population control. And a lot of newly freed slaves—if you didn't have your freedom papers, you were sold back into slavery! So, when I see how current police departments deploy and what their primary objectives are, their mission foremost—primarily, is still to protect commercial interests, property, and business.
 
Rice: [01:03:49] And where today, the mission should be to ensure a peaceful society... To ensure the safety of all the citizens and serve and protect? To protect the civil liberties and civil rights of all of citizens. So, as I go forward in my struggles with Picture the Homeless, I'm going to continue to push for structural police reform.
 
Rice: [01:04:25] I take issue with a body being called a Civilian Complaint Review Board, when the Mayor appoints people to that body—and then after he appoints a police commissioner, his police commissioner appoints other people. So, this is not really a Civilian Complaint Review Board. It's a bureaucratic body designed to placate the masses and promote civil obedience and to encourage civil unrest. But it doesn't follow my mission statement at Picture the Homeless. It doesn't create structural change.
 
Rice: [01:05:18] I would like to see the police commissioner be an elected body instead of appointed. I would like to see Borough Presidents select people from each Borough to the Civilian Complaint Review Board. And I would like to see the decentralization of punitive police power that's now centralized—the only person that is empowered in the New York City Charter—currently, to impose punitive measures on the police department is its own police commissioner! To meet the needs of the present society, the way—diverse as it is, the way it's structured in New York City now—we need to revisit the city charter. And we need to change the structurization of the so-called Civilian Complaint Review Board, and we need to decentralize police power. And I think the first step would be to make the police commissioner's job an elected position instead of an appointed one.
 
Lewis: [01:06:39] Jean, could you describe some of the specific ways that police violate the Fourteenth Amendment prohibition against selective enforcement against homeless folks? Can you talk about, when you were street homeless—tell us some interactions that you had with the police.
 
Rice: [01:07:04] It is so similar to the era in America, when America wasn't so great—during a period when the Fugitive Slave Act was the law of the land. Because now, homeless people are treated like fugitive slaves. If you appear to be homeless, I mean if you've got a shopping cart with personal belongings in it—you appear to be homeless. You're targeted in public space. The same way that police agents, during the era of the Fugitive Slave Act, targeted people of color who had a stick over their shoulder with their meager belongings tied to the stick. Well, that stick has now become a shopping cart. And the police mission has not changed—enough to satisfy this citizen from era of The Fugitive Slave Act, to current.
 
Rice: [01:08:10] When I'm around Grand Central Station, white suburban kids, who come from the upper Hudson—the Hudson Railroad, and [unclear] when they come out for a concert or a sporting event… They can drink their alcohol, play their music with impunity. While a person of color who appears to be homeless—does not enjoy the same civil liberties.

Rice: [01:08:51] And when I study the origins of the 14th Amendment, there was a great debate in Congress about, “Are you going to make these newly freed slaves equal to white Anglo Saxon?” And Summer—Stanton, all them, they said, “We're not talking about this radical socialized, take the wealthy property and distribute it… We're not saying that. We're talking about all Americans being equal before the law.”
 
Rice: [01:09:27] And, as a founding member of the Picture the Homeless civil rights committee, I say that all New York City citizens, whether domiciled or undomiciled, should be equal before the law. I am so encouraged by the City Council passing… Making homeless, being undomiciled, a protected status. That goes a long way, but it is still is not enough. Because it still—we still have homeless people being targeted. We still have people of color being targeted by selective enforcement.
 
Rice: [01:10:20] And there’s these superficial rationales, “Oh, I stopped that person of color because is a high crime area.” Well, you know what? In New York City’s history—when the five crime families were fighting for control, basically Italians. I did not see our police department impugn the civil liberties of all Italians. After Prohibition, there was this five families fighting for control with the industrialization of New York City! There were five families fighting for control of the docks, fighting for control of the garment industry. But I never saw martial law declared in places where Italians live.
 
Rice: [01:11:18] I never saw where a police officer just kicked down somebody's door, like they did poor Ramarley Graham’s family. I never saw a police department issue an edict banning an illegal chokehold and thirty substantiated complaints laying on the police commissioners’ desk—not being acted upon. And then Eric Garner dies, subject to a banned chokehold.
 
Lewis: That was filmed on video.
 
Rice: [01:11:52] So all of this, as a—in addition to being a citizen at large in New York City… But being a member of Picture the Homeless, I've got a front seat to all of these atrocities and how the status quo, as soon as we get a progressive city council, and we pass some reform… Instead of them looking for—in closed sessions—instead of looking for more effective ways to implement the reform and protect the common good—they look for the loopholes!  
 
Lewis: [00:12:31] Thank you for that Jean. You know, folks that are listening to this are going to recognize your scholarship [smiles] and depth of knowledge about the Constitution. They’re probably not going to think that you were homeless for a couple decades, because of the way homeless people are pictured.
 
Rice: Well, my sister…
 
Lewis: [01:12:57] How did you gain… I know you went to college, but—connect the dots for people. How did you as a homeless man, apply this knowledge? How did you—how did being homeless amplify what you had already learned in your life?
 
Rice: [01:13:22] Because, as a—in my position at Picture the Homeless, I've sat on many formal panels. And the same question you just posed to me, [laughs] on one panel that was streamlined across America, dealing with the issue of stop and frisk… Professor Lefcourt [Harcourt], at… he’s a Professor—I think at Columbia… And he has written a book called Illusion of Order, and he was on that panel with me. And at the end of the formal discussion, he asked me pretty much the same question.
 
Rice: [01:14:12] Rice: [01:14:12]And then, with all due respect, I told him that academicians who study—textbook—they come away from the college experience with credentials that look good on paper, or when you're read it in your computer. But when you take their theory, void hands-on experience—hands on experience... When you're not being impacted by the criminal justice system, when you're not in a position to observe the implementation of the theory, on the ground, on the street level—it narrows your ability to offer a credible objective perspective!
 
Rice: [01:15:18] I think that my creator has made me really qualified! I went to college where I got the textbook knowledge. I'm part of, as a person of color and my homeless experience, I'm part of the New York City underclass. Then, as a member of Picture the Homeless, I'm privileged to have some standing and some credibility. And when you put all this together, I think I'm more qualified than Heather MacDonald—to say what's working, and what's not working—on the ground in New York City.
 
Lewis: All right. Well, I think for today we'll stop there.
 
Rice: Okay.
 
Lewis: Do you have any last thoughts that you would like to add?
 
Rice: [01:16:02] Oh! I'm so glad that the same creator that put me in the position I'm in, has evolved my sister Lynn to this effort and given her a venue at Columbia. And I think that this project, and this idea, is pregnant with potential—not just for Lynn Lewis and Jean Rice and members of Picture the Homeless. But I think that whoever avails themself of this material being put together via this project will experience a unique insight into what it's like to be in the underclass—a member of the underclass in New York City and ideas about implementing equal opportunity, assimilation, acculturation, and a shot at social mobility. So, that more families in one generation can move toward the mainstream and not continue to be poverty stricken and deprived of equal opportunity.
 
Lewis: Thank you Jean