Long Center

Friday, June 20, 2014

Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared at Long Center in Austin, Texas as a part of the book tour for Hard Choices. After signing copies of her book, Clinton spoke primarily about her time a Secretary of State.

News Source: KVUE ABC

Edmonton, Canada

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared at an event for her book, Hard Choices, in Edmonton, Canada. She spoke about a wide variety of topics, but spoke primarily about her time as Secretary of State. Clinton commented that Secretaries of State have a unique perspective saying, “So bringing that perspective — there have been a couple people before me, who have been secretary of state, who have run for president. I think that is a different perspective because you spend a concentrated period of time listening to people on the outside.”

There is currently no video available from this event and one will be posted if/when available.

News and Photo Source: Politico

Interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer

Monday, June 9, 2014

Hillary Rodham Clinton was interviewed by Diane Sawyer in an hour special on ABC. The interview, which took place in Clinton’s home, kicked off the book tour for her memoir, Hard Choices. Sawyer asked Clinton tough questions about the attack on the American Embassy in Benghazi, the re-emergence of Monica Lewinsky, and her plans for 2016. We highly recommend watching the full interview.

Video Source: YouTube

Voice and Agency: Empowering Women and Girls for Shared Prosperity

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Last Wednesday, The World Bank released a report entitled “Voice and Agency: Empowering Women and Girls for Shared Prosperity.” The report pulls data from hundreds of sources and provides an overview of the issues women and girls face across the globe. A live discussion was held to reveal the findings with Hillary Rodham Clinton delivering the keynote address. Those also taking part in the event include: Dr. Jim Yong Kim, World Bank Group President; Jeni Klugman, Director, Gender & Development, World Bank Group; and Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director, UN Women.

We are unable to embed the video from this event, but you may view the full video on The World Bank’s website by CLICKING HERE.

News/Image Source: The World Bank

Excerpt from Clinton’s Upcoming Memoir

Vogue Magazine published an exclusive excerpt from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s upcoming memoir Hard Choices. Released for Mother’s Day, Clinton talks about her mother. In addition to the excerpt, Vogue also posted the audio version of the excerpt, read by Clinton. To listen to the audio, click the link above, and the full excerpt is below.

Hard Choices will be published on June 10 by Simon & Schuster.

From the moment I first held Chelsea in my arms in the hospital in Little Rock, I knew my mission in life was to give her every opportunity to thrive. As she’s grown up and stepped out into the world in her own right, my responsibilities have changed. Now that she’s expecting a child of her own, I’m preparing for a new role that I’ve looked forward to for years: grandmother. And I’ve found myself thinking a lot about my relationship with my own mom, as an adult as well as in childhood, and what lessons I learned from her.

When I became Secretary of State, Mom was just about to turn 90. She had been living with us in Washington for the past few years, ever since being alone in her apartment overlooking the zoo on Connecticut Avenue became too much. Like so many Americans of my generation, I felt both blessed to have these extra years with an aging parent and very responsible for making sure she was comfortable and well cared for. Mom gave me so much unconditional love and support when I was growing up in Park Ridge, Illinois; now it was my turn to support her. Of course I never would have let her hear me describe it that way. Dorothy Howell Rodham was a fiercely independent woman. She couldn’t bear the thought of being a burden to anyone.

Having her so close became a source of great comfort to me, especially in the difficult period after the end of the 2008 campaign. I’d come home from a long day at the Senate or the State Department, slide in next to her at the small table in our breakfast nook, and let everything just pour out. 

Mom loved mystery novels, Mexican food, Dancing with the Stars (we actually managed to get her to a taping of the show once), and most of all her grandchildren. My nephew Zach Rodham’s school was just five minutes away, and he came over many afternoons to visit her. Spending time with Fiona and Simon Rodham, her youngest grandchildren, was a precious delight for her. For Chelsea, her grandmother was one of the most important figures in her life. Mom helped Chelsea navigate the unique challenges of growing up in the public eye and, when she was ready, encouraged her to pursue her passion for service and philanthropy. Even in her 90s, Mom never lost her commitment to social justice, which did so much to mold and inspire me when I was growing up. I loved that she was able to do the same for Chelsea. And I’m not sure if I ever saw Mom happier than at Chelsea’s wedding. She proudly walked down the aisle on Zach’s arm and exulted over her joyful, radiant granddaughter.

Mom’s own childhood was marked by trauma and abandonment. In Chicago her parents fought frequently and divorced when she and her sister were young. Neither parent was willing to care for the kids, so they were put on a train to California to live with their paternal grandparents in Alhambra, a town near the San Gabriel Mountains east of Los Angeles. The elderly couple was severe and unloving. One Halloween, after Mom was caught trick-or-treating with school friends, a forbidden activity, she was confined to her room for an entire year, except for the hours she was in school. She wasn’t allowed to eat at the kitchen table or play in the yard. By the time Mom turned fourteen, she could no longer bear life in her grandmother’s house. She moved out and found work as a housekeeper and nanny for a kindhearted woman in San Gabriel who offered room and board plus $3 a week and urged her to attend high school. For the first time she saw how loving parents care for their children—it was a revelation.

After graduating from high school Mom moved back to Chicago in the hopes of reconnecting with her own mother. Sadly she was spurned yet again. Heartbroken, she spent the next five years working as a secretary before she met and married my father, Hugh Rodham. She built a new life as a homemaker, spending her days lavishing love on me and my two younger brothers.

When I got old enough to understand all this, I asked my mother how she survived abuse and abandonment without becoming embittered and emotionally stunted. How did she emerge from this lonely early life as such a loving and levelheaded woman? I’ll never forget how she replied. “At critical points in my life somebody showed me kindness,” she said. Sometimes it would seem so small, but it would mean so much—the teacher in elementary school who noticed that she never had money to buy milk, so every day would buy two cartons of milk and then say, “Dorothy, I can’t drink this other carton of milk. Would you like it?” Or the woman who hired her as a nanny and insisted that she go to high school. One day she noticed that Mom had only one blouse that she washed every day. “Dorothy, I can’t fit into this blouse anymore and I’d hate to throw it away. Would you like it?” she said.

Mom was amazingly energetic and positive even into her 90s. But her health started to fail her; she had trouble with her heart. By the fall of 2011 I was growing worried about leaving her alone. On the evening of October 31, another Halloween, I was preparing to leave for London and Turkey. My team was already on board the airplane at Andrews waiting for me to arrive so we could take off. That’s when I got the call that Mom had been rushed to George Washington University Hospital. I quickly canceled the trip and sped there. Bill, Chelsea, and Marc rushed down from New York, and my brothers and their wives, Hugh and Maria and Tony and Megan, arrived as quickly as they could. Mom was a fighter her entire life, but it was finally time to let go. I sat by her bedside and held her hand one last time. No one had a bigger influence on my life or did more to shape the person I became.

When I lost my father in 1993, it felt too soon, and I was consumed with sadness for all the things he would not live to see and do. This was different. Mom lived a long and full life. This time I wept not for what she would miss but for how much I would miss her. I spent the next few days going through her things at home, paging through a book, staring at an old photograph, caressing a piece of beloved jewelry. I found myself sitting next to her empty chair in the breakfast nook and wishing more than anything that I could have one more conversation, one more hug.

We held a small memorial service at the house with close family and friends. We asked Reverend Bill Shillady, who married Chelsea and Marc, to officiate. Chelsea spoke movingly, as did many of Mom’s friends and our family. I read a few lines from the poet Mary Oliver, whose work Mom and I both adored.

Standing there with Bill and Chelsea by my side, I tried to say a final goodbye. I remembered a piece of wisdom that an older friend of mine shared in her later years that perfectly captured how my mother lived her life and how I hoped to live mine: “I have loved and been loved; all the rest is background music.”

I looked at Chelsea and thought about how proud Mom was of her. Mom measured her own life by how much she was able to help us and serve others. I knew if she was still with us, she would be urging us to do the same. Never rest on your laurels. Never quit. Never stop working to make the world a better place. That’s our unfinished business.

Copyright © 2014 by Hillary Rodham Clinton

Clinton Memoir Title Revealed

Today, Simon & Schuster announced the title of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s upcoming memoir. The book will be titled Hard Choices and will focus on her time as the 67th Secretary of State. Hard Choices will be available June 10 and can be pre-ordered from a number of websites and book stores. For information can be found at the microsite for Hard Choices by clicking here.

The full blurb for Hard Choices is below:

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON’S INSIDE ACCOUNT OF THE CRISES, CHOICES, AND CHALLENGES SHE FACED DURING HER FOUR YEARS AS AMERICA’S 67TH SECRETARY OF STATE, AND HOW THOSE EXPERIENCES DRIVE HER VIEW OF THE FUTURE.

“All of us face hard choices in our lives,” Hillary Rodham Clinton writes at the start of this personal chronicle of years at the center of world events. “Life is about making such choices. Our choices and how we handle them shape the people we become.”

In the aftermath of her 2008 presidential run, she expected to return to representing New York in the United States Senate. To her surprise, her former rival for the Democratic Party nomination, newly elected President Barack Obama, asked her to serve in his administration as Secretary of State. This memoir is the story of the four extraordinary and historic years that followed, and the hard choices that she and her colleagues confronted.

Secretary Clinton and President Obama had to decide how to repair fractured alliances, wind down two wars, and address a global financial crisis. They faced a rising competitor in China, growing threats from Iran and North Korea, and revolutions across the Middle East. Along the way, they grappled with some of the toughest dilemmas of US foreign policy, especially the decision to send Americans into harm’s way, from Afghanistan to Libya to the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

By the end of her tenure, Secretary Clinton had visited 112 countries, traveled nearly one million miles, and gained a truly global perspective on many of the major trends reshaping the landscape of the twenty-first century, from economic inequality to climate change to revolutions in energy, communications, and health. Drawing on conversations with numerous leaders and experts, Secretary Clinton offers her views on what it will take for the United States to compete and thrive in an interdependent world. She makes a passionate case for human rights and the full participation in society of women , youth, and LGBT people. An astute eyewitness to decades of social change, she distinguishes the trendlines from the headlines and describes the progress occurring throughout the world, day after day.

Secretary Clinton’s descriptions of diplomatic conversations at the highest levels offer readers a master class in international relations, as does her analysis of how we can best use “smart power” to deliver security and prosperity in a rapidly changing world—one in which America remains the indispensable nation.

Clinton Memoir to be Released June 10

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s upcoming memoir will be published on June 10.  Publisher Simon & Schuster announced the book’s release date today and unveiled a website dedicated to the book. Although little is known about the book, including its title, Clinton’s book is expected to be about her time as Secretary of State. However, Amazon does list that the book will be 688 pages. The new website allows you to sign up for updates and provides links to a number of retail outlets through which you may pre-order the book. You may access Simon & Schuster’s site by CLICKING HERE.

Farewell Address to the State Department

Friday, February 1, 2013

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton bids the State Department farewell on her last day of work as Secretary of State. In an emotion goodbye, she thanked employees of the State Department and pledged to “be an advocate from outside” for the Department.

Video Source: YouTube

News Source: The Washington Post

Council on Foreign Relations

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered her final speech before leaving the State Department. She spoke about American Leadership at the Council on Foreign Relations and stressed that diplomacy needs to be rethought to meet a changing global landscape.

Video Source: YouTube

News Source: NewHour

State Department Global Town Hall

Tuesday, January 29, 2013 (1:11:41)

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton participated in a global town hall interview at the Newseum in Washington, DC. This was Secretary Clinton’s 59th town hall, and her final as Secretary of State. Questions are asked by a moderator and young people around the world. Countries represented include: Britain, Beruit, Colombia, Japan, Greece, Germany, Italy, Nigeria, and India.

Video Source: YouTube