The Jean Rice Project
Our mission is to educate the next generation of civil society members on the foundations of democracy and the importance of its protection, and our vision is to create a civically-engaged, constitutionally-educated populace that believes a free and fair democracy as the bastion for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The Jean Rice Project’s curriculum is sourced from the Interactive Constitution by National Constitution Center. This Licensed Educational Content is solely for educational non-commercial purposes to enhance your understanding of the Constitution and its role in our lives.
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About the Jean Rice Project
In early 2018, Art Trotman, Jean’s long-time friend and adopted brother, and Lynn Lewis, a friend and comrade who has worked with Jean for nearly 20 years at Picture the Homeless, approached Jean with the idea of recording and transcribing a series of oral history interviews for the purpose of writing this book. Lynn had already interviewed Jean for the Picture the 
Homeless Oral History Project and his recall nor his laser sharp analysis had not diminished with age. Jean enthusiastically agreed to talk his book into being. This was the beginning of our journey to ensure that through this project, millions can meet Jean and deepen their understanding of our country’s history–and in so doing, be inspired to commit to engaging in justice work as Jean has.
Since its genesis, the project has taken on dimensions in a way that reflects its subject. Cameron Vanderscoff joined the team as co-oral historian and co-writer with Jean in 2020. Both Lynn and Cameron are graduates of the Oral History Master’s program at Columbia University. We aren’t merely talking a book into being in a linear way, but generating layers of nuanced content through dozens of interviews that support Jean through his own process of memory work.
The Jean Rice Story begins with a book, based on dozens of long form oral history interviews with Jean, close friends and family members, faith leaders, and social justice movement allies whose lives have been impacted by Jean. Complementing the interviews are meticulously researched archival materials–everything from legal records to Supreme Court rulings illustrating Jean’s connections to the history of this country and the public policies that shape our daily lives, while remaining true to his voice and his analysis. The interviews have been transcribed and rendered in book form. Our vision is to make the audio recordings made publicly available for the broadest reach possible, including future podcasts and other audio products. Finally, we are working towards developing curricula to share lessons from Jean’s story.
Meet the Jean Rice Project Team
The team is composed of Jean Rice, author, co-author and lead narrator; Cameron Vanderscoff, author, co-author and co-oral historian; Lynn Lewis, co-oral historian and project collaborator; and Arthur Trotman, advisor, and commissioning party. Joel Tucciarone is the project’s advisor.
Jean Rice
Co-Author & Lead Narrator
Jean Rice was born on July 1, 1939 in Anderson, South Carolina and moved to Harlem as a child with his mother as part of the Great Migration in the 1940’s. He attended NYC public schools and joined the Army as a teenager, later serving time in Attica State Prison. As an older adult, he attended Norwalk Community College, studying Public Administration, making the Dean’s List and was elected president of the Black Student Union. He transferred to John Jay College for Criminal Justice in New York City on a full scholarship and is an avid reader and student of history and public policy.
Jean recently secured housing after being homeless on and off for over 30 years during which time he supplemented his income by picking up cans for recycling and engaging in public solicitation/panhandling. While homeless, Jean joined Picture the Homeless (PTH), one of the only homeless led organizations in the U.S. becoming a civil rights campaign leader and founding board member. Through his work at PTH, he became a Poverty Scholar at Union Theological Seminary. In 2013 he received a City Council Proclamation and was the subject of a Daily News feature for his work creating the Jean Rice Homeless Liberation Reference Library. Jean is currently working on a memoir about his life, now spanning over 80 decades.
Lynn Lewis
Co-Oral Historian & Project Collaborator
Lynn Lewis is a community organizer, oral historian, and educator, with nearly 40 years of experience working in the social justice movement in the U.S. and Latin America. She is the founding executive director and former civil rights organizer at Picture the Homeless (PTH), a NYC based grassroots organization led by homeless New Yorkers which achieved major policy innovations in the areas of housing, service delivery and policing during her tenure. Lynn is currently working on an oral history project of Picture the Homeless where she is developing innovations in oral history research. Her work was most recently featured in Histoire Social/Social History and the multi-media exhibit, Imagining De-Gentrified Futures, at ApexArt in New York City. She earned her M.A. in oral history from Columbia, and currently works as a freelance oral historian, popular education trainer, and development consultant and is an adjunct faculty at the New School for Social Research.
Joel Tucciarone
Advisor & Literary Agent
Joel Tucciarone serves as advisor to the Jean Rice project team. He is Founder/Managing Director of LeRoux & Childe, a Content Representation firm and CEO of Diadem Partners, NYC-based consultancy with relational marketing® services in strategic business development, branding, research, and media analysis. Acknowledged as a marketing innovator, Joel has worked with 100+ brands, media, packaged goods, direct-to-customer (B2C/B2B) businesses, non-profits, digital ventures, and professional talent. He has held executive positions on Madison Ave., including SVP, Director of Strategic Marketing of Wunderman Worldwide (division of Young & Rubicam). Recognizing that publishing businesses operate well below the marketing practice of major Consumer Brands, Joel determined to apply his expertise to marketing-oriented Content Representation via LeRoux & Childe. He helped drive the success of the Million copy N. Y. Times bestseller DIETRICH BONHOEFFER Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. A graduate cum laude of Yale University, Joel has pursued post-graduate studies at Yale Divinity School and New York University in film/media.
Arthur Trotman
Friend & True Believer of Jean Rice
Arthur Trotman is a retired marketing executive who spent most of his working life with General Foods Corporation, including fifteen years of his career working outside of the U.S., in Puerto Rico, Mexico, France and Australia. Art has been married for fifty-six years, has three married children and six grandchildren ages 13-23. Originally from Connecticut, and a graduate of Yale University, Art currently resides in Key Biscayne, Florida.
One of his many volunteer efforts was serving on the board member of Union Theological Seminary in New York City. A group of faculty and students there were working hard on issues of poverty, especially the challenges of the homeless. Through that group, as he puts it, “I met a remarkable man named Jean Rice. He has led a fascinating life with many periods of being homeless. He was willing to share with me his passion for social justice reforms and ideas of how to solve many of the issues the homeless face. We became very close friends and refer to ourselves as brothers. My efforts now are to compile his ideas and experiences in a book about his life.”
Cameron Vanderscoff
Co-Author & Co-Oral Historian
Cameron Vanderscoff is a writer and oral historian with a practice is based in New York City. Across the last decade, he has built a versatile portfolio of public and private partnerships, from family memoirs to major public oral history projects to institutional legacy work. With clients including Columbia University, media icon Tina Brown, the University of California, and the Apollo Theater, he has worked throughout the U.S. and across five continents. He is the co-editor of a major new anthology, Seeds of Something Different: An Oral History of UC Santa Cruz, and his work has been featured in Robert Rauschenberg: An Oral History. He holds an M.A. in oral history from Columbia and is an experienced speaker and educator in his fields at home and abroad.