Colin Powell – As A Patriot And Black Man, He Embodied The ‘Two-Ness’ Of The African American Experience
Chad Williams, Brandeis University
Colin Powell knew where he fit in American history.
The former secretary of state – who died on Oct. 18, 2021, at 84 as a result of COVID-19 complications – was a pioneer: the first Black national security advisor in U.S. history, the first Black chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and also the first Black man to become secretary of state.
But his “American journey” – as he described it in the title of a 2003 autobiography – is more than the story of one man. His death is a moment to think about the history of Black American men and women in the military and the place of African Americans in government.
But more profoundly, it also speaks to what it means to be an American, and the tensions that Colin Powell – as a patriot and a Black man – faced th...