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Colin Powell, the retired four-star general who became the country’s first Black Secretary of State and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has died due to complications from Covid-19. He was 84.
Powell, 84, was fully vaccinated from Covid-19, and had been treated at Walter Reed National Medical Center but was suffering from serious underlying conditions.
Powell and his wife, Alma, were tested for Covid recently and both tested positive. Powell was then hospitalized at Walter Reed. Powell had multiple myeloma, a cancer of a type of white blood cell, which can harm the body’s immune system, surgery for prostate cancer when he was Secretary of State, and, more recently, Parkinson’s disease.
Powell became the first Black secretary of state under President George W. Bush. He served twice in Vietnam — during the first tour, he was wounded in action, and on the second tour, he received the Soldier’s Medal for rescuing several men from a burning helicopter. He also received a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts earned during his other tours in Vietnam. He also served as U.S. National Security Adviser under President Ronald Reagan from 1987 to 1989.
Powell, a moderate Republican and a pragmatist, considered a bid to become the first Black president in 1996 but his wife Alma’s worries about his safety helped him decide otherwise. Powell will forever be associated with his controversial presentation on Feb. 5, 2003, to the U.N. Security Council, making President George W. Bush’s case that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein constituted an imminent danger to the world because of its stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.
In 2008, he broke with his party to endorse Democrat Barack Obama, who became the first Black elected to the White House.
Powell was born in 1937 in Harlem, New York, to immigrants from Jamaica and grew up in the South Bronx, going on to get a bachelor’s degree from the City College of New York.
He is survived by his wife, their three children, and multiple grandchildren.
