Real name: John Richard Rice

Born: December 11, 1895, Gainsville, Texas, USA
Died: December 29, 1980, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, USA

Baptist evangelist and publisher, was born to a poor Baptist farming family near Gainesville, Texas. Despite his poverty, Rice was able to get himself through Baylor University with a degree in 1920. After beginning an education degree at the University of Chicago he dropped out to study for the ministry at Southwestern Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. In 1926 he began a full-time evangelistic ministry and became known for his fiery pulpit rhetoric and no-compromise attitude on doctrinal issues. In 1927 he followed maverick Texan Baptist J. Frank Norris out of the Southern Baptist Convention, setting up decades of scathing criticism of Southern Baptist leaders, decisions, and institutions.