Emmett Rice shaped the economic policies of America and beyond for decades as a member of the Federal Reserve Board, an official with the World Bank and a key figure in establishing Nigeria’s central banking system.
When it came time to retire, Rice opted for Camas, a place where he could enjoy leisurely walks with other seniors, present his friends with the best $10 bottles of wine he could find and bask in the beauty of Mount Hood from his house on Prune Hill.
Rice, a former member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and father of Susan E. Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, lived in Camas for 13 years before he died Thursday due to congestive heart failure. He was 91.
The combination of beautiful scenery and friendly people drew Rice to Camas when he was searching for a West Coast city to retire to in 1998, said his son, E. John Rice Jr.
“The Camas and Vancouver community really made him happy,” Rice said. “This place defined happiness for him.”
Rice made lasting friendships with many of the city’s residents through its Osprey walking group, which meets five times a week at different city parks. His grace, intelligence, and knowledge on a wide variety of topics made him a valued friend and community member, said Camas city administrator Lloyd Halverson, whose wife participates in the Osprey group.
“What a gentleman!” Halverson exclaimed. “What a giant!”
Rice was born in Florence, S.C., the son of a preacher and a schoolteacher. He became fascinated with economics as a child during the Great Depression. A stint during World War II as an officer with the famed Tuskegee Airmen, a black unit in the Army Air Forces, further informed his world view.
“It was a profoundly galvanizing experience that he resented mightily,” Susan Rice said of his WWII experience, where he served in managerial and accounting roles. Rice disagreed with how young black men, like himself, were treated as second-class citizens when they returned home from the war, she said.
For the rest of his life, Rice refused to let race hold him back, his family said.
He became Berkeley, Calif.’s first black firefighter while attending graduate school there in the late 1940s. Three decades later, he became the second black man to serve on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the seven-member body that sets U.S. monetary policy and regulates the banking system.
He thought of himself as a pioneer based on his accomplishments, not his skin color, his family said.
“Oftentimes when he had a new job or appointment, the media referred to him as the first black or second black to achieve that,” Rice’s son recalled, “but that wasn’t important to him. He felt plenty of African-Americans were good enough to achieve what he achieved, but the opportunities weren’t there.”
Rice’s daughter said her father’s focus on public service made her and her brother, who runs a nonprofit group, strive for excellence in their own lives. He helped establish Nigeria’s banking system in the early 1960s and then served as the acting director of the Treasury Department’s Office of Developing Nations in the Johnson administration.
He also served as executive director of the World Bank from 1966 to 1970, setting economic policies in the United States and abroad.
“At every stage, he was prepared to prove he could do as well as anybody else,” his daughter said.
In Camas, Rice did not speak about his past life on the world economic stage, his friend Jim Christensen said.
They occasionally drank a bottle of white wine together. Rice made it a practice to never spend more than $10 on a bottle, Christensen remembered fondly.
“He was a good friend, just a really nice guy,” Christensen said.
