-- An undated photograph of Hillary Rodham, center, during her days as a student at Wellesley College, from 1965 to 1969.
"My mom could not live my life; father could not imagine it
I was not born a first lady or a senator. I was not born a Democrat. I was not born a lawyer or an advocate for women's rights and human rights. I was not born a wife or a mother. I was born an American in the middle of the 20th century, a fortunate time and place. I was free to make choices unavailable to many women in the world today. I came of age on the crest of tumultuous social change and took part in the political battles fought over the meaning of America and its role in the world.
My mother and grandmothers could never have lived my life; my father and my grandfathers could never have imagined it. But they bestowed on me the promise of American, which made my life and my choices possible."
"In 1972, I returned to D.C. to work for Marian Wright Edelman. My assignment was to gather information about the Nixon Administration's failure to enforce the legal ban on granting tax-exempt status to the private segregated academies that had sprung up in the South to avoid integrated public schools. The academies claimed they were created in response to parents deciding to form private schools; it had nothing to do with court-ordered integration. I went to Atlanta to meet with the lawyers and civil rights workers who were compiling evidence that proved the academies were created solely for the purpose of avoiding the constitutional mandate of the Supreme Court's decisions.
As part of my investigation, I drove to Alabama. At a local private school, I had an appointment to meet an administrator to discuss enrolling my imaginary child. I went through my role-playing, asking questions about the curriculum and makeup of the student body. I was assured that no black students would be enrolled."
"My first article, titled "Children Under the Law," was published in 1974 in the Harvard Educational Review. My views were shaped by what I had observed as a volunteer for Legal Services representing children in foster care & by my experiences at the Chil Study Center in Yale-New Haven Hospital. I advised doctors as they tried to ascertain whether a child should be put into the child welfare system. I come from a strong family and believe in a parent's presumptive right to raise his or her child as he or she sees fit. But at Yale-New Haven Hospital, I saw children whose parents beat and burned them; who left them alone for days in squalid apartments; who failed and refused to seek necessary medical care. The truth was that certain parents abdicated their rights as parents.
Bill asked me to chair an Education Standards Committee to recommend reforms. Nobody, including me, thought it was a good idea. Bill was convinced he was right to appoint me, & I relented.
This was a risky move. Improving the schools would require an increase in taxes--never popular. The 15-member committee recommended that students take standardized tests, including one before they could graduate from 8th grade. But the cornerstone of the proposed reform plan was mandatory teacher testing. Though this enraged the teachers union, civil rights groups & others who were vital to the Democratic Party in Arkansas, we felt there was no way around the issue. How could we expect children to perform at national levels when their teachers fell short? Getting the legislature to approve and fund the reform package turned into a knock-down-drag-out fight among interest groups. I plead our case for improving schools before a joint session of the Arkansas legislature, and the reform plan was implemented in 1984."
"My eight years in the White House tested my faith and political beliefs, my marriage, and our nation's Constitution. I became a lightning rod for political and ideological battles waged over America's future and a magnet for feelings, good and bad, about women's choices and roles."
excerpts from, 'Living History', a memoir written by Hillary Clinton
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