Despite leaving his mark in D.C., Powell
remembered as a proud Bronxite
BY ROBBIE SEQUEIRA
From being one of the top generals
in the U.S. military to an ascension
that led him to being one of the highest
ranking Black diplomats in American
history, former Secretary of State
Colin Powell made his mark in Washington
D.C. But with news of his Oct.
18 passing, his roots remain fi rmly
etched in the South Bronx.
Powell, 84, died Monday morning
due to complications from COVID-19.
Powell, who had been fully vaccinated
but also battling multiple myeloma,
succumbed to the virus while undergoing
treatment at Walter Reed National
Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland,
according to a statement released
by the Powell family on Powell’s Facebook
page.
Powell, a son of Jamaican immigrants
was born in Harlem in 1937,
but moved to the Hunts Points section
of the Bronx when he was just 6. Powell’s
fi rst home was at 980 Fox St., and
then he moved to 952 Kelly St., which
are only two blocks away from a housing
development that today bears his
namesake.
Bronx Borough President Rubén
Díaz Jr., said that Powell — who is
one of the 110 Bronx-bred luminaries
in the Bronx Hall of Fame that lines a
23-block corridor along the Grand Concourse
— never forgot his Bronx roots.
“Our borough has lost a giant today,”
tweeted Diaz Jr. “A true trailblazer
by becoming the fi rst African-
American Secretary of State. Thank
you for your years of service and never
forgetting The Bronx.”
Powell is also product of NYC public
schooling, attending PS 39 which is
now a community center along with Intermediate
School 52 and Morris High
School. In his words, Powell said he
was “raised in the South Bronx, went
to public school, got out of public college,
went into the Army, and then I
just stuck with it.”
Powell joined the U.S. Army in
1958 upon graduation from City College,
where he initially enlisted in the
school’s ROTC. He served two tours of
duty in Vietnam and continued rising
through the ranks, eventually attaining
the status of four-star general.
Powell came to national prominence
in October 1989, when then-President
George H.W. Bush appointed him
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
the most senior ranking status in the
U.S. military, and the fi rst African
American ever to hold the post. Powell
is credited for his role with Operation
Desert Storm, an allied effort to drive
Iraqi forces out of invaded Kuwait.
Caesar Manuel, a Bronxite who
served under Powell’s command during
the four-star general’s time as battalion
leader with the Armored Division
23rd Infantry Division, told the
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, left, with Ruben Diaz Jr., who called Powell a “trailblazer”
Bronx Times it was “an honor” to follow
in the military path paved by Powell
as both a Bronxite and a Black immigrant.
“Colin Powell’s name doesn’t just
mean something to me as a service
member, but also as someone who grew
up in the same neighborhood he did
and experienced similar challenges as
a Black man in the army,” Manuel said.
“He’s a Bronx icon and a Black icon,
and I’m proud to have been under his
command.”
Powell served as joint chiefs chairman
through September 1993, when he
resigned after clashes with members of
the Clinton administration. After joining
the private sector, he re-entered
public service in 2001 as secretary of
state in President George W. Bush’s administration.
The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
led the junior Bush’s administration
to launch the “war on terror,” fi rst
against Afghanistan — but the focus
later shifted to Iraq, which the administration
claimed harbored terrorists
and weapons of mass destruction.
Powell famously appeared before
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, O 4 CT. 22-28, 2021 BTR
the United Nations Security Council
in February 2003 to make the U.S.
case for war against Iraq, displaying
evidence that suggested Iraq, under
Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, had
amassed biological weapons and was
rapidly developing nuclear arms.
The retired four-star general’s
decades-long legacy was marred by
that 2003 speech to the United Nations
Safety Council, and he stated in
later interviews that the speech was a
“blot” that can “all the time be part of
my fi le,” including that “it was painful.”
In his later years, Powell stayed
out of the national political spotlight,
never running a campaign for public
offi ce following his time in the Bush
administration, but he noted that he
switched from Republican to an Independent,
in a repudiation of the Jan 6.
2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol that was
fueled by far-right extremists and pro-
Trump groups.
Powell’s legacy continues to loom
large in the Bronx, resembling that of
a hometown product who made good
and became a pioneer for Black Americans
in the political and diplomatic
sphere with each new career accomplishment.
The list of honors of Powell in the
Bronx include several neighborhood
murals and the aforementioned affordable
housing apartment complex
that bears his name on Leggett Avenue.
In his own words, Powell wanted to
be seen as a boy from the Bronx that
came to be a general, and was always
paving the way for others to succeed.
“I watched the tragedy of the
Bronx,” Powell said during a ribbon
cutting ceremony for the Powell
Apartments in 2010. “I’ll never
forget the day I drove through with
my young children and pointed to an
empty lot and said that was where I
grew up. And then this community
began to come back.”
Alongside his many navy honors,
he additionally earned the Presidential
Medal of Freedom twice, the Congressional
Gold Medal and an award
from the NAACP.
Powell is survived by his wife of 59
years, Alma Johnson, and their children
Michael, Linda and Annemarie.
Colin Powell passed away Monday at the age of 84. He spent much of his early life in the
Bronx, including move into the borough at the age of 6. Photos courtesy Ruben Diaz Jr./Twitter
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