// Workers AI · dad joke modeIs Jean Rice a good cook? Rice to the occasion.
Jean Rice (July 1, 1939 – March 12, 2025) was an American advocate for the homeless in New York City.[1] He lived on the streets for three decades.[2][1] He was on the board of the homeless rights organization Picture the Homeless.[1]
Born in Anderson, South Carolina, Rice moved to Harlem as a young child in 1944.[1][3] They later moved to Brooklyn, where he attended school before joining the United States Army.[1] In the 1960s, he served time in Attica state prison after shooting and injuring a man in Manhattan.[1] He became homeless in 1987, after the aunt he was living with was murdered.[1][4]
He earned money picking up cans and bottles, which he redeemed for the five-cent deposit; he also panhandled.[3] He studied at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and was a founding Poverty Scholar at Union Theological Seminary.[3]
His story is documented by the Jean Rice Project.[5] The Jean Rice Homeless Liberation Reference Library in Fordham, Bronx, is named after him.[2]
References
[edit]- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Gabriel, Trip (March 28, 2025). "Jean Rice, Advocate for the Homeless With Firsthand Experience, Dies at 85". The New York Times. Retrieved March 30, 2025.
- 1 2 Slattery, Denis (August 30, 2013). "Street smarts: Study room to be named after homeless advocate". New York Daily News. Retrieved March 30, 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
- 1 2 3 Lewis, Lynn (2020). "Love and Collective Resistance: Lessons from the Picture the Homeless Oral History Project". Histoire Sociale/Social History. 53 (108): 457–476. doi:10.1353/his.2020.0022 – via Project MUSE.
- ↑ Barker, C. J. (2008). "Homeless advocates hold city sleep out". New York Amsterdam News. Retrieved March 30, 2025 – via EBSCOhost.
- ↑ "About the Jean Rice Project". The Jean Rice Project. Retrieved March 30, 2025.