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Colin Powell

Colin Luther Powell (born April 5, 1937) is an American politician and retired four-star general in the United States Army. During his military career, Powell also served as National Security Advisor (1987–1989), as Commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command (1989) and as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989–1993), holding the latter position during the Persian Gulf War. Powell was the first, and so far the only, Jamaican American to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under U.S. President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, the first black person to serve in that position.

Powell was born in New York City in 1937 and was raised in the South Bronx. His parents, Luther and Maud Powell, immigrated to the United States from Jamaica. Powell was educated in the New York City public schools, graduating from the City College of New York (CCNY), where he earned a bachelor's degree in geology. He also participated in ROTC at CCNY and received a commission as an Army second lieutenant upon graduation in June 1958. His further academic achievements include a Master of Business Administration degree from George Washington University.

Powell was a professional soldier for 35 years, during which time he held many command and staff positions and rose to the rank of 4-star general. His last assignment, from October 1, 1989, to September 30, 1993, was as the 12th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest military position in the Department of Defense. During this time, he oversaw 28 crises, including Operation Desert Storm in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He also formulated the Powell Doctrine.

Following his military retirement, Powell wrote his best-selling autobiography, My American Journey. In addition, he pursued a career as a public speaker, addressing audiences across the country and abroad. Prior to his appointment as Secretary of State, Powell was the chairman of America's Promise – The Alliance for Youth, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to mobilizing people from every sector of American life to build the character and competence of young people. He was nominated by President Bush on December 16, 2000, as Secretary of State. After being unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate, he was sworn in as the 65th Secretary of State on January 20, 2001.

Powell is the recipient of numerous U.S. and foreign military awards and decorations. Powell's civilian awards include the Presidential Medal of Freedom (twice), the President's Citizens Medal, the Congressional Gold Medal, the Secretary of State Distinguished Service Medal, and the Secretary of Energy Distinguished Service Medal. Several schools and other institutions have been named in his honor and he holds honorary degrees from universities and colleges across the country. Powell is married to the former Alma Vivian Johnson of Birmingham, Alabama. The Powell family includes son Michael (ex-chairman of the Federal Communications Commission); daughters Linda and Anne; daughter-in-law Jane; and grandsons Jeffrey and Bryan.

In 2016, while not a candidate for that year's election, Powell received three electoral votes for the office of President of the United States.

Early life and education

Powell was born on April 5, 1937, in Harlem, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, to Jamaican immigrants, Maud Arial (née McKoy) and Luther Theophilus Powell. His parents were both of mixed African and Scottish ancestry. Luther worked as a shipping clerk and Maud as a seamstress. Powell was raised in the South Bronx and attended Morris High School, from which he graduated in 1954. (This school has since closed.)

While at school, Powell worked at a local baby furniture store, where he picked up Yiddish from the eastern European Jewish shopkeepers and some of the customers. He also served as a Shabbos goy, helping Orthodox families with needed tasks on the Sabbath. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology from the City College of New York in 1958 and has said he was a 'C average' student. He later earned an MBA degree from the George Washington University in 1971, after his second tour in Vietnam.

Despite his parents' pronunciation of his name as , Powell has pronounced his name since childhood, after the World War II flyer Colin P. Kelly Jr. Public officials and radio and television reporters have used Powell's preferred pronunciation.

Military career

Powell was a professional soldier for 35 years, holding a variety of command and staff positions and rising to the rank of general.

Training

Powell described joining the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) during college as one of the happiest experiences of his life; discovering something he loved and could do well, he felt he had "found himself." According to Powell:

It was only once I was in college, about six months into college when I found something that I liked, and that was ROTC, Reserve Officer Training Corps in the military. And I not only liked it, but I was pretty good at it. That's what you really have to look for in life, something that you like, and something that you think you're pretty good at. And if you can put those two things together, then you're on the right track, and just drive on.

Cadet Powell joined the Pershing Rifles, the ROTC fraternal organization and drill team begun by General John Pershing. Even after he had become a general, Powell kept on his desk a pen set he had won for a drill team competition.

Upon graduation, he received a commission as an Army second lieutenant. After attending basic training at Fort Benning, Powell was assigned to the 48th Infantry, in West Germany, as a platoon leader.

Vietnam War

In his autobiography, Powell said he is haunted by the nightmare of the Vietnam War and felt that the leadership was very ineffective.

Captain Powell served a tour in Vietnam as a South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) advisor from 1962 to 1963. While on patrol in a Viet Cong-held area, he was wounded by stepping on a punji stake. The large infection made it difficult for him to walk, and caused his foot to swell for a short time, shortening his first tour.

Powell returned to Vietnam as a major in 1968, serving as assistant chief of staff of operations for the in the 23rd (Americal) Infantry Division. During the second tour in Vietnam he was decorated with the Soldier's Medal for bravery after he survived a helicopter crash and single-handedly rescued three others, including division commander Major General Charles M. Gettys, from the burning wreckage.

Powell was charged with investigating a detailed letter by 11th Light Infantry Brigade soldier Tom Glen, which backed up rumored allegations of the My Lai Massacre. He wrote: "In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent." Later, Powell's assessment would be described as whitewashing the news of the massacre, and questions would continue to remain undisclosed to the public. In May 2004 Powell said to television and radio host Larry King, "I was in a unit that was responsible for My Lai. I got there after My Lai happened. So, in war, these sorts of horrible things happen every now and again, but they are still to be deplored."

After the Vietnam War

Powell served a White House Fellowship under President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1973. During 1975–1976 he attended the National War College, Washington, D.C.

In his autobiography, My American Journey, Powell named several officers he served under who inspired and mentored him. As a lieutenant colonel serving in South Korea, Powell was very close to General Henry "Gunfighter" Emerson. Powell said he regarded Emerson as one of the most caring officers he ever met. Emerson insisted his troops train at night to fight a possible North Korean attack, and made them repeatedly watch the television film Brian's Song to promote racial harmony. Powell always professed that what set Emerson apart was his great love of his soldiers and concern for their welfare. After a race riot occurred, in which African American soldiers almost killed a White officer, Powell was charged by Emerson to crack down on black militants; Powell's efforts led to the discharge of one soldier, and other efforts to reduce racial tensions. During 1976–1977 he commanded the 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division.

A "political general"

In the early 1980s, Powell served at Fort Carson, Colorado. After he left Fort Carson, Powell became senior military assistant to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, whom he assisted during the 1983 invasion of Grenada and the 1986 airstrike on Libya.

In 1986, Powell took over the command of V Corps in Frankfurt, Germany, from Robert Lewis "Sam" Wetzel.

Following the Iran–Contra scandal, Powell became, at the age of 49, Ronald Reagan's National Security Advisor, serving from 1987 to 1989 while retaining his Army commission as a lieutenant general.

In April 1989, after his tenure with the National Security Council, Powell was promoted to four-star general under President George H. W. Bush and briefly served as the Commander in Chief, Forces Command (FORSCOM), headquartered at Fort McPherson, Georgia, overseeing all Army, Army Reserve, and National Guard units in the Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. He became the third general since World War II to reach four-star rank without ever serving as a division commander, joining Dwight D. Eisenhower and Alexander Haig.

Later that year, President George H. W. Bush selected him as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Powell's last military assignment, from October 1, 1989, to September 30, 1993, was as the 12th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest military position in the Department of Defense. At age 52, he became the youngest officer, and first Afro-Caribbean American, to serve in this position. Powell was also the first JCS Chair who received his commission through ROTC.

During this time, he oversaw responses to 28 crises, including the invasion of Panama in 1989 to remove General Manuel Noriega from power and Operation Desert Storm in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. During these events, Powell earned his nickname, "the reluctant warrior." He rarely advocated military intervention as the first solution to an international crisis, and instead usually prescribed diplomacy and containment.

As a military strategist, Powell advocated an approach to military conflicts that maximizes the potential for success and minimizes casualties. A component of this approach is the use of overwhelming force, which he applied to Operation Desert Storm in 1991. His approach has been dubbed the "Powell Doctrine." Powell continued as chairman of the JCS into the Clinton presidency but as a dedicated "realist" he considered himself a bad fit for an administration largely made up of liberal internationalists. He clashed with then-U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright over the Bosnian crisis, as he opposed any military interventions that didn't involve US interests.

During his chairmanship of the JCS, there was discussion of awarding Powell a fifth star, granting him the rank of General of the Army. But even in the wake of public and Congressional pressure to do so, Clinton-Gore presidential transition team staffers decided against it.

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Potential presidential candidate

Powell's experience in military matters made him a very popular figure with both American political parties. Many Democrats admired his moderate stance on military matters, while many Republicans saw him as a great asset associated with the successes of past Republican administrations. Put forth as a potential Democratic Vice Presidential nominee in the 1992 U.S. presidential election or even potentially replacing Vice President Dan Quayle as the Republican Vice Presidential nominee, Powell eventually declared himself a Republican and began to campaign for Republican candidates in 1995. He was touted as a possible opponent of Bill Clinton in the 1996 U.S. presidential election, possibly capitalizing on a split conservative vote in Iowa and even leading New Hampshire polls for the GOP nomination, but Powell declined, citing a lack of passion for politics. Powell defeated Clinton 50–38 in a hypothetical match-up proposed to voters in the exit polls conducted on Election Day. Despite not standing in the race, Powell won the Republican New Hampshire Vice-Presidential primary on write-in votes.

In 1997 Powell founded America's Promise with the objective of helping children from all socioeconomic sectors. That same year saw the establishment of The Colin L. Powell Center for Leadership and Service. The mission of the Center is to "prepare new generations of publicly engaged leaders from populations previously underrepresented in public service and policy circles, to build a strong culture of civic engagement at City College, and to mobilize campus resources to meet pressing community needs and serve the public good."

Powell was mentioned as a potential candidate in the 2000 U.S. presidential election, but again decided against running. Once Texas Governor George W. Bush secured the Republican nomination, Powell endorsed him for president and spoke at the 2000 Republican National Convention. Bush won the general election and appointed Powell as Secretary of State.

In the electoral college vote count of 2016, Powell received three votes for President from faithless electors from Washington.

Secretary of State (2001–2005)

As Secretary of State in the Bush administration, Powell was perceived as moderate. Powell was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate. Over the course of his tenure he traveled less than any other U.S. Secretary of State in 30 years.

On September 11, 2001, Powell was in Lima, Peru, meeting with President Alejandro Toledo and US Ambassador John Hamilton, and attending the special session of the OAS General Assembly that subsequently adopted the Inter-American Democratic Charter. After the September 11 attacks, Powell's job became of critical importance in managing America's relationships with foreign countries in order to secure a stable coalition in the War on Terrorism.

Powell came under fire for his role in building the case for the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. In a press statement on February 24, 2001, he had said that sanctions against Iraq had prevented the development of any weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein. As was the case in the days leading up to the Persian Gulf War, Powell was initially opposed to a forcible overthrow of Saddam, preferring to continue a policy of containment. However, Powell eventually agreed to go along with the Bush administration's determination to remove Saddam. He had often clashed with others in the administration, who were reportedly planning an Iraq invasion even before the September 11 attacks, an insight supported by testimony by former terrorism czar Richard Clarke in front of the 9/11 Commission. The main concession Powell wanted before he would offer his full support for the Iraq War was the involvement of the international community in the invasion, as opposed to a unilateral approach. He was also successful in persuading Bush to take the case of Iraq to the United Nations, and in moderating other initiatives. Powell was placed at the forefront of this diplomatic campaign.

Powell's chief role was to garner international support for a multi-national coalition to mount the invasion. To this end, Powell addressed a plenary session of the United Nations Security Council on February 5, 2003, to argue in favor of military action. Citing numerous anonymous Iraqi defectors, Powell asserted that "there can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more." Powell also stated that there was "no doubt in my mind" that Saddam was working to obtain key components to produce nuclear weapons.

Most observers praised Powell's oratorical skills. However, Britain's Channel 4 News reported soon afterwards that a UK intelligence dossier that Powell had referred to as a "fine paper" during his presentation had been based on old material and plagiarized an essay by American graduate student Ibrahim al-Marashi.A 2004 report by the Iraq Survey Group concluded that the evidence that Powell offered to support the allegation that the Iraqi government possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) was inaccurate.

In an interview with Charlie Rose, Powell contended that prior to his UN presentation, he had merely four days to review the data concerning WMD in Iraq.

A Senate report on intelligence failures would later detail the intense debate that went on behind the scenes on what to include in Powell's speech. State Department analysts had found dozens of factual problems in drafts of the speech. Some of the claims were taken out, but others were left in, such as claims based on the yellowcake forgery. The administration came under fire for having acted on faulty intelligence, particularly what was single-sourced to the informant known as Curveball. Powell later recounted how Vice President Dick Cheney had joked with him before he gave the speech, telling him, "You've got high poll ratings; you can afford to lose a few points." Powell's longtime aide-de-camp and Chief of Staff from 1989–2003, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, later characterized Cheney's view of Powell's mission as to "go up there and sell it, and we'll have moved forward a peg or two. Fall on your damn sword and kill yourself, and I'll be happy, too."

In September 2005, Powell was asked about the speech during an interview with Barbara Walters and responded that it was a "blot" on his record. He went on to say, "It will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now."

Wilkerson said that he inadvertently participated in a hoax on the American people in preparing Powell's erroneous testimony before the United Nations Security Council.

Because Powell was seen as more moderate than most figures in the administration, he was spared many of the attacks that have been leveled at more controversial advocates of the invasion, such as Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. At times, infighting among the Powell-led State Department, the Rumsfeld-led Defense Department, and Cheney's office had the effect of polarizing the administration on crucial issues, such as what actions to take regarding Iran and North Korea.

After Saddam Hussein had been deposed, Powell's new role was to once again establish a working international coalition, this time to assist in the rebuilding of post-war Iraq. On September 13, 2004, Powell testified before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, acknowledging that the sources who provided much of the information in his February 2003 UN presentation were "wrong" and that it was "unlikely" that any stockpiles of WMDs would be found. Claiming that he was unaware that some intelligence officials questioned the information prior to his presentation, Powell pushed for reform in the intelligence community, including the creation of a national intelligence director who would assure that "what one person knew, everyone else knew."

Additionally, Powell has been critical of other aspects of U.S. foreign policy in the past, such as its support for the 1973 Chilean coup d'état. From two separate interviews in 2003, Powell stated in one about the 1973 event "I can't justify or explain the actions and decisions that were made at that time. It was a different time. There was a great deal of concern about communism in this part of the world. Communism was a threat to the democracies in this part of the world. It was a threat to the United States." In another interview, however, he also simply stated "With respect to your earlier comment about Chile in the 1970s and what happened with Mr. Allende, it is not a part of American history that we're proud of."

Powell announced his resignation as Secretary of State on November 15, 2004. According to The Washington Post, he had been asked to resign by the president's chief of staff, Andrew Card. Powell announced that he would stay on until the end of Bush's first term or until his replacement's confirmation by Congress. The following day, Bush nominated National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice as Powell's successor. News of Powell's leaving the Administration spurred mixed reactions from politicians around the world — some upset at the loss of a statesman seen as a moderating factor within the Bush administration, but others hoping for Powell's successor to wield more influence within the cabinet.

In mid-November, Powell stated that he had seen new evidence suggesting that Iran was adapting missiles for a nuclear delivery system. The accusation came at the same time as the settlement of an agreement between Iran, the IAEA, and the European Union.

On December 31, 2004, Powell rang in the New Year by pressing a button in Times Square with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to initiate the ball drop and 60 second countdown, ushering in the year 2005. He appeared on the networks that were broadcasting New Year's Eve specials and talked about this honor, as well as being a native of New York City.

Life after diplomatic service

After retiring from the role of Secretary of State, Powell returned to private life. In April 2005, he was privately telephoned by Republican senators Lincoln Chafee and Chuck Hagel, at which time Powell expressed reservations and mixed reviews about the nomination of John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations, but refrained from advising the senators to oppose Bolton (Powell had clashed with Bolton during Bush's first term). The decision was viewed as potentially dealing significant damage to Bolton's chances of confirmation. Bolton was put into the position via a recess appointment because of the strong opposition in the Senate.

On April 28, 2005, an opinion piece in The Guardian by Sidney Blumenthal (a former top aide to President Bill Clinton) claimed that Powell was in fact "conducting a campaign" against Bolton because of the acrimonious battles they had had while working together, which among other things had resulted in Powell cutting Bolton out of talks with Iran and Libya after complaints about Bolton's involvement from the British. Blumenthal added that "The foreign relations committee has discovered that Bolton made a highly unusual request and gained access to 10 intercepts by the National Security Agency. Staff members on the committee believe that Bolton was probably spying on Powell, his senior advisors and other officials reporting to him on diplomatic initiatives that Bolton opposed."

In July 2005, Powell joined Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, a well-known Silicon Valley venture capital firm, with the title of "strategic limited partner."

In September 2005, Powell criticized the response to Hurricane Katrina. Powell said that thousands of people were not properly protected, but because they were poor rather than because they were black.

On January 5, 2006, he participated in a meeting at the White House of former Secretaries of Defense and State to discuss United States foreign policy with Bush administration officials. In September 2006, Powell sided with more moderate Senate Republicans in supporting more rights for detainees and opposing President Bush's terrorism bill. He backed Senators John Warner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham in their statement that U.S. military and intelligence personnel in future wars will suffer for abuses committed in 2006 by the U.S. in the name of fighting terrorism. Powell stated that "The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of [America's] fight against terrorism."

Also in 2006, Powell began appearing as a speaker at a series of motivational events called Get Motivated, along with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. In his speeches for the tour, he openly criticized the Bush Administration on a number of issues. Powell has been the recipient of mild criticism for his role with Get Motivated which has been called a "get-rich-quick-without-much-effort, feel-good schemology."

In 2007 he joined the board of directors of Steve Case's new company Revolution Health. Powell also serves on the Council on Foreign Relations Board of directors.

Powell, in honor of Martin Luther King Day, dropped the ceremonial first puck at a New York Islanders ice hockey game at Nassau Coliseum on January 21, 2008. On November 11, 2008, Powell again dropped the puck in recognition of Military Appreciation Day and Veterans Day.

Recently, Powell has encouraged young people to continue to use new technologies to their advantage in the future. In a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies to a room of young professionals, he said, "That's your generation...a generation that is hard-wired digital, a generation that understands the power of the information revolution and how it is transforming the world. A generation that you represent, and you're coming together to share; to debate; to decide; to connect with each other." At this event, he encouraged the next generation to involve themselves politically on the upcoming Next America Project, which uses online debate to provide policy recommendations for the upcoming administration.

In 2008, Powell served as a spokesperson for National Mentoring Month, a campaign held each January to recruit volunteer mentors for at-risk youth.

Soon after Barack Obama's 2008 election, Powell began being mentioned as a possible cabinet member. He was not nominated.

In September 2009, Powell advised President Obama against surging US forces in Afghanistan. The president announced the surge the following December.

On March 14, 2014, Salesforce.com announced that Powell had joined its board of directors.

Political views

A liberal Republican, Powell is well known for his willingness to support liberal or centrist causes. He is pro-choice regarding abortion, and in favor of "reasonable" gun control. He stated in his autobiography that he supports affirmative action that levels the playing field, without giving a leg up to undeserving persons because of racial issues. Powell was also instrumental in the 1993 implementation of the military's don't ask, don't tell policy, though he later supported its repeal as proposed by Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen in January 2010, saying "circumstances had changed."

The Vietnam War had a profound effect on Powell's views of the proper use of military force. These views are described in detail in the autobiography My American Journey. The Powell Doctrine, as the views became known, was a central component of U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf War (the first U.S. war in Iraq) and U.S. invasion of Afghanistan (the overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks). The hallmark of both operations was strong international cooperation, and the use of overwhelming military force.

Powell was the subject of controversy in 2004 when, in a conversation with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, he reportedly referred to neoconservatives within the Bush administration as "fucking crazies." In addition to being reported in the press (although the expletive was generally censored in the U.S. press), the quotation was used by James Naughtie in his book, The Accidental American: Tony Blair and the Presidency, and by Chris Patten in his book, Cousins and Strangers: America, Britain, and Europe in a New Century.

In a September 2006 letter to Sen. John McCain, General Powell expressed opposition to President Bush's push for military tribunals of those formerly and currently classified as enemy combatants. Specifically, he objected to the effort in Congress to "redefine Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention." He also asserted: "The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism."

Powell endorsed President Obama in 2008 and again in 2012. When asked why he is still a Republican on Meet the Press he said, "I'm still a Republican. And I think the Republican Party needs me more than the Democratic Party needs me. And you can be a Republican and still feel strongly about issues such as immigration, and improving our education system, and doing something about some of the social problems that exist in our society and our country. I don't think there's anything inconsistent with this."

While Powell was wary of a military solution, he supported the decision to invade Iraq after the Bush administration concluded that diplomatic efforts had failed. After his departure from the State Department, Powell repeatedly emphasized his continued support for American involvement in the Iraq War.

At the 2007 Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado, Powell revealed that he had spent two and a half hours explaining to President Bush "the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers." During this discussion, he insisted that the U.S. appeal to the United Nations first, but if diplomacy failed, he would support the invasion: "I also had to say to him that you are the President, you will have to make the ultimate judgment, and if the judgment is this isn't working and we don't think it is going to solve the problem, then if military action is undertaken I'm with you, I support you."

In a 2008 interview on CNN, Powell reiterated his support for the 2003 decision to invade Iraq in the context of his endorsement of Barack Obama, stating: "My role has been very, very straightforward. I wanted to avoid a war. The president [Bush] agreed with me. We tried to do that. We couldn't get it through the U.N. and when the president made the decision, I supported that decision. And I've never blinked from that. I've never said I didn't support a decision to go to war."

Powell's position on the Iraq War troop surge of 2007 has been less consistent. In December 2006, he expressed skepticism that the strategy would work and whether the U.S. military had enough troops to carry it out successfully. He stated: "I am not persuaded that another surge of troops into Baghdad for the purposes of suppressing this communitarian violence, this civil war, will work." Following his endorsement of Barack Obama in October 2008, however, Powell praised General David Petraeus and U.S. troops, as well as the Iraqi government, concluding that "it's starting to turn around." By mid-2009, he had concluded a surge of U.S. forces in Iraq should have come sooner, perhaps in late 2003. Throughout this period, Powell consistently argued that Iraqi political progress was essential, not just military force.

Powell donated the maximum allowable amount to John McCain's campaign in the summer of 2007 and in early 2008, his name was listed as a possible running mate for Republican nominee McCain's bid during the 2008 U.S. presidential election. However, on October 19, 2008, Powell announced his endorsement of Barack Obama during a Meet the Press interview, citing "his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities", in addition to his "style and substance." He additionally referred to Obama as a "transformational figure." Powell further questioned McCain's judgment in appointing Sarah Palin as the vice presidential candidate, stating that despite the fact that she is admired, "now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don't believe she's ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president." He said that Obama's choice for vice-president, Joe Biden, was ready to be president. He also added that he was "troubled" by the "false intimations that Obama was Muslim." Powell stated that "[Obama] is a Christian—he's always been a Christian... But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America." Powell then mentioned Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, a Muslim American soldier in the U.S. Army who served and died in the Iraq War. He later stated, "Over the last seven weeks, the approach of the Republican Party has become narrower and narrower [...] I look at these kind of approaches to the campaign, and they trouble me." Powell concluded his Sunday morning talk show comments, "It isn't easy for me to disappoint Sen. McCain in the way that I have this morning, and I regret that [...] I think we need a transformational figure. I think we need a president who is a generational change and that's why I'm supporting Barack Obama, not out of any lack of respect or admiration for Sen. John McCain." Later in a December 12, 2008, CNN interview with Fareed Zakaria, Powell reiterated his belief that during the last few months of the campaign, Palin pushed the Republican party further to the right and had a polarizing impact on it.

In a July 2009 CNN interview with John King, Powell expressed concern over President Obama growing the size of the federal government and the size of the federal budget deficit. In September 2010, he criticized the Obama administration for not focusing "like a razor blade" on the economy and job creation. Powell reiterated that Obama was a "transformational figure." In a video that aired on CNN.com in November 2011, Colin Powell said in reference to Barack Obama, "many of his decisions have been quite sound. The financial system was put back on a stable basis."

On October 25, 2012, 12 days before the presidential election, he gave his endorsement to President Obama for re-election during a broadcast of CBS This Morning. He cited success and forward progress in foreign and domestic policy arenas under the Obama Administration, and made the following statement: "I voted for him in 2008 and I plan to stick with him in 2012 and I'll be voting for he [sic] and for Vice President Joe Biden next month."

As additional reason for his endorsement, Powell cited the changing positions and perceived lack of thoughtfulness of Mitt Romney on foreign affairs, and a concern for the validity of Romney's economic plans.

In an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos during ABC's coverage of President Obama's second inauguration, Powell criticized members of the Republican Party who "demonize[d] the president." He called on GOP leaders to publicly denounce such talk.

Powell has been very vocal on the state of the Republican party. Speaking at a Washington Ideas forum in early October 2015, he warned the audience that the Republican party had begun a move to the fringe right, lessening the chances of a Republican White House in the future. He also remarked on Republican presidential contender Donald Trump's statements regarding immigrants, noting that there were many immigrants working in Trump hotels.

In March 2016, Powell denounced the "nastiness" of the 2016 Republican primaries during an interview on CBS This Morning. He compared the race to reality television, and stated that the campaign had gone "into the mud."

In August 2016, Powell accused the Clinton campaign of trying to pin Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's email controversy on him. Speaking to People magazine, Powell said, "The truth is, she was using [the private email server] for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did."

On September 13, 2016, emails were obtained that revealed Powell's private communications regarding both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Powell privately reiterated his comments regarding Clinton's email scandal, writing, "I have told Hillary's minions repeatedly that they are making a mistake trying to drag me in, yet they still try," and complaining that "Hillary's mafia keeps trying to suck me into it" in another email. In another email discussing Clinton's controversy, Powell noted that she should have told everyone what she did "two years ago", and said that she has not "been covering herself with glory." Writing on the 2012 Benghazi attack controversy surrounding Clinton, Powell said to then U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, "Benghazi is a stupid witch hunt." Commenting on Clinton in a general sense, Powell mused that "Everything [Clinton] touches she kind of screws up with hubris", and in another email stated "I would rather not have to vote for her, although she is a friend I respect."

Powell referred to Donald Trump as a "national disgrace", with "no sense of shame." He wrote of Trump's role in the birther movement, which he referred to as "racist." Powell suggested that the media ignore Trump, saying, "To go on and call him an idiot just emboldens him." The emails were obtained by the media as the result of a hack.

Powell endorsed Clinton on October 25, 2016, stating it was "because I think she's qualified, and the other gentleman is not qualified."

Despite not running in the election, Powell received three electoral votes for president from faithless electors in Washington who had pledged to vote for Clinton, coming in third overall. After Barack Obama, Powell was only the second Black person to receive electoral votes in a presidential election. He was also the first Republican since 1984 to receive electoral votes from Washington in a presidential election, as well as the first Republican Black person to do so.

In an interview in October 2019, Powell warned that the GOP needed to “get a grip" and put the country before their party, standing up to President Trump rather than worrying about political fallout. “When they see things that are not right, they need to say something about it because our foreign policy is in shambles right now, in my humble judgment, and I see things happening that are hard to understand,” Powell said.

Personal life

Powell married Alma Johnson on August 25, 1962. Their son, Michael Powell, was the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from 2001 to 2005. His daughters are Linda Powell, an actress, and Annemarie Powell. As a hobby, Powell restores old Volvo and Saab cars. In 2013, he faced questions about a relationship with a Romanian diplomat, after a hacked AOL email account had been made public. He acknowledged a "very personal" email relationship but denied further involvement.

Civilian awards and honors

Powell's civilian awards include two Presidential Medals of Freedom (the second with distinction), the President's Citizens Medal, the Congressional Gold Medal, the Secretary of State Distinguished Service Medal, the Secretary of Energy Distinguished Service Medal, and the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award. Several schools and other institutions have been named in his honor and he holds honorary degrees from universities and colleges across the country.

In 1988, Powell received the Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award.

In 1990, Powell received the U.S. Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.

In 1991, Powell was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George H. W. Bush.

In 1991, Powell was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP.

In 1991, Powell was inducted into the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, which "honors the achievements of outstanding individuals in U.S. society who have succeeded in spite of adversity and of encouraging young people to pursue their dreams through higher education."

On April 23, 1991, Powell was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal "in recognition of his exemplary performance as a military leader and advisor to the President in planning and coordinating the military response of the United States to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the ultimate retreat and defeat of Iraqi forces and Iraqi acceptance of all United Nations Resolutions relating to Kuwait."

On September 30, 1993, Powell was awarded his second Presidential Medal of Freedom with distinction by President Bill Clinton.

On November 9, 1993, Powell was awarded the second Ronald Reagan Freedom Award, by President Ronald Reagan. Powell served as Reagan's National Security Advisor from 1987–1989.

On December 15, 1993, Colin Powell was created an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.

In 1998, he was awarded the prestigious Sylvanus Thayer Award by the United States Military Academy for his commitment to the ideals of "Duty, Honor, Country."

The 2002 Liberty Medal was awarded to Colin Powell on July 4 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In his acceptance speech, Powell reminded Americans that "It is for America, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, to help freedom ring across the globe, unto all the peoples thereof. That is our solemn obligation, and we will not fail."

The coat of arms of Colin Powell was granted by the Lord Lyon in Edinburgh on February 4, 2004. Technically the grant was to Powell's father (a British subject) to be passed on by descent. Scotland's King of Arms is traditionally responsible for granting arms to Commonwealth citizens of Scottish descent. Blazoned as

Azure, two swords in saltire points downwards between four mullets Argent, on a chief of the Second a lion passant Gules. On a wreath of the Liveries is set for Crest the head of an American bald-headed eagle erased Proper. And in an escrol over the same this motto, "DEVOTED TO PUBLIC SERVICE."

The swords and stars refer to the former general's career, as does the crest, which is the badge of the 101st Airborne (which he served as a brigade commander in the mid-1970s). The lion may be an allusion to Scotland. The shield can be shown surrounded by the insignia of an honorary Knight Commander of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath (KCB), an award the General received after the first Gulf War.

In 2005 Powell received the Bishop John T. Walker Distinguished Humanitarian Service Award for his contributions to Africa.

AARP honored Powell with the 2006 AARP Andrus Award, the Association's highest honor. This award, named in honor of AARP's founder, Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus, is presented biennially to distinguished individuals who have generated positive social change in the world, and whose work and achievements reflect AARP's vision of bringing lifetimes of experience and leadership to serve all generations.

In 2005 Colin and Alma Powell were awarded the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the Smithsonian Institution.

Colin Powell was initiated as an honorary brother in Sigma Phi Epsilon.

Powell is a recipient of the Silver Buffalo Award, the highest adult award given by the Boy Scouts of America.

A street in Gelnhausen, Germany was named after him: "General-Colin-Powell-Straße."

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Colin Powell on his list of 100 Greatest Blacks in America.

In 2009, an elementary school named for Colin Powell opened in El Paso. It is in the El Paso Independent School District, located on Fort Bliss property, and serves a portion of Fort Bliss. There is also a street in El Paso named for Powell, Colin Powell Drive.

Powell is an Honorary Board Member of the humanitarian organization Wings of Hope

Since 2006, he is the chairman of the Board of Trustees for Eisenhower Fellowships

In 2006, The Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem awarded Colin Powell with the Truman Peace Prize for his efforts to conduct the "war against terrorism", through diplomatic as well as military means, and to avert regional and civil conflicts in many parts of the world.

In September 2012 Union City, New Jersey opened Colin Powell Elementary School, which was named after Powell, and dedicated the school on February 7, 2013, with governor Chris Christie in attendance. Powell himself visited the school on June 4, 2013.

In 2014, Colin Powell was named to the National Board of Advisors for High Point University.

#04/05

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ruminativerabbi · 4 years ago

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The Interconnectedness of Generations

The passing this week of Irving Roth, one of the truly great Holocaust educators, was a loss for his family and his friends, of course. And it was a loss for our entire community. But it was also a loss for the larger world of Holocaust education, one made all the more terrible by the fact that he will not be replaced, by the fact that the countless young people (and countless really is the right word here) he spoke to in every one of the fifty states and all across the world about his personal experiences at Auschwitz and Buchenwald will collectively constitute the final generation of young people to meet actual Shoah survivors and to hear their stories not on videotape or in books but personally from their own mouths. This is how the world works in other contexts as well, of course—when Albert H. Woolson died in the summer of 1956, there were no remaining veterans of the Union Army left among the living for young people, or any people, to hear speak about the Civil War in terms of their personal experience. (The last living veteran of the Confederate Army had died five years earlier, so Woolson was the very last one on either side.) When Peter Mills died in 1972, there were no more individuals alive who had been slaves in the ante-bellum South. And yet, even though all events far enough back in history must have some specific individual who becomes the last living person to have experienced that specific event in person, there is a certain poignancy to that thought when applied to the Shoah because that what the survivors of the Shoah survived was not a tragic accident like the sinking of the Titanic or a natural disaster like the eruption of Krakatoa, but a well-organized, fully-funded, diabolical plot to murder them and every other Jew in occupied Europe. Given that detail, it feels amazing that there were survivors at all and doubly so that some have managed to live to become nonagenarians or even centenarians. But once they are gone from the world, there will be none left who can counter the kind of demented anti-Semite who insists that the Shoah never really happened with the simple sentences that Irving spoke so easily and so gracefully. I was there. I saw this happen. I knew these people. I was in that place. I remember. I personally was an eye-witness.

But even though every event in the far-enough-past past has logically to have a final witness to it, there is also the way the generations interlink and interconnect to consider.

For my first example, I submit the case of Lyon Tyler Jr., who died at age ninety-five last October and whose grandfather, John Tyler, was our tenth president. Elected to the vice-presidency in 1840, Tyler came to the presidency when William Henry Harrison died in office after serving all of thirty-one days. Tyler was an interesting personality in his own right. Like our forty-fifth president, he ended up serving only one term, but unlike President Trump he failed even to win his own party’s nomination for a second term, let alone actually be returned to the White House by the electorate. (The Whigs nominated Henry Clay instead, who lost to Democrat James K. Polk.) Probably, that was all for the best—Tyler not only owned slaves himself and ended up siding with the Confederacy during the Civil War, but he actually ran for office and was duly elected to the Confederate House of Representatives shortly before his death in 1862. But my question was not how an American President born in the eighteenth century—Tyler was born in 1790—could have ended up working actively against the nation he once led, but how a grandson of his could possibly still have been alive in 2020.

The answer, it turns out, isn’t all that amazing. Tyler was married twice and had fifteen children in all, the youngest of whom, a boy named Lyon, was born in 1854 when his father was sixty-three years old. Lyon, who died in 1935, fathered a son in 1925, Lyon Jr. And it was this Lyon Jr., the grandson of a man born in 1790, who died last October at age ninety-five. (Even more amazing is that he wasn’t the sole surviving grandson of our tenth president—Lyon Jr. had a younger brother named Harrison who was born in 1928 and who is still alive.)

So to think that all three of my granddaughters’ lives overlapped with the life of a man whose grandfather occupied the White House in the 1840s—that collapses history just a bit and makes the past seem—if not really part of the present—then at least intertwined with it in a way that makes events from John Tyler’s eighteenth century childhood somehow linked—at least fancifully—with my twenty-first century granddaughters’.

Of course, to as keen an observer of the human condition as myself, the eighteenth century doesn’t really feel all that distant. I regularly take my youngest granddaughter for a long walk in Ridgewood, Queens, where she lives, in the course of which we follow a route that takes us around the perimeter of two contiguous cemeteries, one of the which, the Linden Hill Cemetery, has some very, very old Jewish graves in it. And on our walk we regularly pass the grave of the late Mrs. Caroline Welsh, who died at age 90 in 1860—so who was therefore born in 1770, a cool six years before the United States even existed as an independent nation. I think about Mrs. Welsh and the others in her row as we walk by their graves, wondering what the corner of Flushing Avenue and Metropolitan Avenue looked like when she was borne to her final resting place…and what that corner might have looked like, assuming it wasn’t still virgin forestland, in the year of her birth. But I also wonder what Mrs. Walsh would make of us, of me and little Josie, as we pass by on our walk all these centuries after her birth. Would she find us indecipherable? Would she look at my cell phone or at Josie’s super-cool Italian stroller and wonder what planet we came to earth from? Or would she see, not something strange or alien but entirely familiar: a man and a baby going for a week on a shady street just as grandfathers have taken their baby granddaughters out for some fresh air since the beginning of time?

I noted two different video clips on youtube the other week that fed into this line of thinking for me.

The one was a clip from the old television show “I’ve Got a Secret,” which aired in its first iteration for fifteen years starting in 1952. For those too young to remember, I’ll explain that the format was very simple: a panel of celebrities was challenged to ask contestants as many questions as they could squeeze into the time allotted in order to figure out the contestants’ “secret.” Most of the time, the secrets were slightly silly. (The lifeguard at a nudist colony sticks in my mind for some reason.) But the two clips I want to write about now weren’t silly at all.

The first aired in February 1956 and featured one Samuel J. Seymour, who at that point was the sole living soul to have been present in Ford’s Theater when President Lincoln was assassinated almost ninety years earlier. He spoke well and clearly, although he didn’t look too well or too healthy. (He died a mere two months later.) I don’t know if readers will respond the way I did (you can take a look by clicking here), but I had that same sense of the past intruding on the present as I watched: it would have been amazing enough to listen to someone who saw or talked to President Lincoln at all, let alone someone who saw him being shot. And yet our lives overlapped: I was a little boy of three and he was a nonagenarian, but we occupied the planet for a while together. And that brought President Lincoln into my life in a way that I would otherwise have found highly unlikely.

The second, also amazing, featured two older women, Delia and Bertie Harris of Knoxville, Tennessee. (Their episode aired in 1961 when both women were in their mid-seventies. To see the clip, click here.) And their “secret” was that their grandfather, Simon Harris, had been a soldier in the Revolutionary War and was with Washington at Valley Forge. How it was possible was also revealed: Simon’s son (the women’s father) was born in 1818 and he became a father when he was in his seventies. And now his daughters were themselves in their seventies…and that is how two women appeared on American television in the 1960s whose grandfather fought under George Washington. And so Washington himself stepped out of the shadows for the eight-year-old me and took his place in my parents’ living room. At eight, I wouldn’t have known to refer to what I was feeling as suggestive of the interconnectedness of the generations. (I heard that. But I was definitely not that precocious.) In retrospect, though, that is precisely how I felt as I listened to these elderly dames and imagined their grandfather’s ghost flitting past us as we communed with President Washington during their fifteen minutes of fame in TV-land.

Both clips, of course, were meant to entertain rather than to serve as spurs to deeply ruminative thought. But both clips lured me into the same kind of thinking that the story about the death of President Tyler’s grandson inspired: that sense that the past is (pace Faulkner) not only not really gone, it’s not even really past. And that is how I propose we respond to Irving Roth’s death too.

The survivor generation is dwindling. When I came to Shelter Rock, there were literally scores of survivors in our midst. Earlier on, when I was a little boy, our neighborhood was filled to overflowing with survivors. (They were called “refugees” back then before the word “survivor” came into common use.) But we can serve, all of us, as those people’s hooks into future generations. My granddaughters will not know people like Irving personally. But they can know me. And us. And all those who knew these people and listened carefully and can say, slightly derivatively but still meaningfully and sincerely, “I wasn’t there…but I knew a man who was. And this is what he told me, what he saw with his own eyes, what he was an eye-witness to….”

#Irving Roth

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sonofhistory · 7 years ago

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didn't washington have not so good relationship with his stepson?

George Washington first met John Park “Jacky” in mid-March of 1758 when he courted his mother Martha Dandridge Custis. Jacky was on four years old at the time. While Washington adopted both Jacky and his sister Patsy, they retained their Custis surname. The children arrived to reside at Mount Vernon with their own slaves–Jacky’s was a ten year old named Julius. In his diary, Washington sometimes referred to his stepchildren as “Jacky Custis” and ��Patsy Custis” as if they were visitors.

Although Washington enjoyed his children, “his formal presence tended to freeze their jollity.” His adopted grandson said, “They felt they were in the presence of one who was not to be trifled with.” He doted in Patsy, a girl who enjoyed music, while Jacky studied the violin and flute. He also hired a dancing master at Mount Vernon for the two children. Washington once himself stated that he had a more relaxed style with girls and that he could govern men not boys. Jacky shared many traits with his late father and the differences he had in temperament with his step-father created issues. Washington was harsh at the same time he was reluctant to apply discipline to Jacky.

Jacky was outwardly sweet and affectionate towards his mother but showed a degree of reserve and disrespect for Washington. His feckless nature was intolerable to Washington and he found himself in a predicament of wanting to disciple Jacky for his actions without seeming brutal to his wife. Towards the end of 1767, Washington sought to find a new teacher for the thirteen-year-old and contacted Reverend Jonathon Boucher, an Anglican clergyman who ran a small academy for wealthy boys in his home near Fredericksburg. In his introductory letter, Washington described Jacky as “as promising boy” who was “untwining in his morals and of innocent manners” but confessed his “anxiety to make him fit for more useful purposes than a horse racer.” Washington rode to Boucher’s school with Jacky, Jacky’s personal slave Julius and two horses.

Boucher’s first letter home described Jacky as a little angel, “a boy of so exceedingly mild and meek a temper” that Boucher worried he might be too artless, with “all the harmlessness of the dove” and none of “the wisdom of the serpent.” He concluded, “I have not seen a youth that I think promises ferried to be a good and useful man than John Custis.” However, a year later, Boucher whistled a different tune. “You will remember my having complained of Jack’s laziness, which, however, I now hope is not incurable,” he wrote to Washington. Later he wrote, “The chief failing of [Jacky’s] character are that he is constitutionally somewhat too warm, indolent and voluptuous.” He added, “Sunk in unmanly sloth, [Jacky’s] estate will be left to the management of some worthless overseer and himself soon be entangled in some matrimonial adventure.” Jacky saw little need to apply himself to his studies.

Martha Washington was a very overprotective mother who would not allow her son to swim because she feared he would drown. In the end, Jacky became so uncontrollable he began staying with other friends after his lessons and often spent the night elsewhere. “I would beg leave to request,” Washington told Boucher, “that [Jacky] may not be suffered to sleep from under your own roof … nor allow him to be rambling about at nights in company with those who do not care how debauched and vicious his conduct may be.” Boucher soon admitted he’d “Neve did in my life know a youth so exceedingly indolent to so surprisingly voluptuous. One would suppose nature had intended him for some Asiatic prince.” Boucher suggested the best way to control Jacky was to send his two horses back to Mount Vernon but Martha, his mother, refused.

Washington attempted to give his stepson everything education wise that he never got to have. He monitors Jacky’s education so narrowly because he took seriously his role as guardian of him. Early 1773, Washington found it high time to send Jacky off to college. For Martha, College of William and Mary would of been desirable considering it’s location, but Washington wanted to send Jacky off to College of New Jersey, however, Boucher wanted to steer him toward King’s College. After, Washington was decidedly in favor of King’s. In December of 1771, unfortunately, Jacky began to court Eleanor “Nelly” Calvert. Washington disapproved of the marriage but told Mr. Calvert to wait for marriage for two or three years until Jacky had completed his education.

When Jacky returned to Mount Vernon, he had with him in tow Charles Willson Peale who painted a portrait of Washington while there and miniatures of Martha, Patsy and Jacky. In May 1773, Washington accompanied his stepson to New York City and enrolled him in King’s College. Instead of socializing with other students, Jacky dinned with President Myles Cooper and his turbos. “I believe I may say without vanity that I am looked upon in a particular light” by the faculty, Jacky told his mother. “There is as much distinction made between me and the other students as can be expected.” He also bragged he and his friend Joe had their own suite rooms. When Patsy, his sister, died, his fiancee, Nelly, was staying with the Washington’s and her presence proved providential and she stepped into a huge emotional void left Patsy’s death, becoming like a second daughter.

During their first year of marriage, after Jacky dropped out of King’s College, Jacky and Nelly divided their time between Mount Airy and Mount Vernon, despite Martha’s wishes that they move permanently to Mount Vernon. Washington found solace that her son, of whom she was so attached to, may now provide emotional support for her and care for her. He asked Jacky and his bride to stay full time at Mount Vernon. While Washington was in Cambridge, on November 16th, 1775, accompanied by Jacky and Nelly, Martha piled into a carriage set for this destination. They arrived on December 11th, 1775 have not seen him since May. Washington soon pressed Jacky into service as a messenger.

In a letter in which Jacky intended to be solely about his mother’s recovery from her smallpox inoculation, he used the occasion to express gratitude for everything his step father had done for him, thanking him for the “parental care which on all occasions you have shown me. It pleased the Almighty to deprive me at a very early period of life of my father, but I cannot sufficiently adore His goodness in sending me so good a guardian as you, Sir. Few have experienced such care and attention from real parents as I have done. He is best deserves the name of father who acts the part of one.”

Martha, temporarily away from her husband at Mount Vernon, was there to witness the birth of her second grandchild to Jacky’s wife on New Year’s Eve in 1777. However, Jacky soon dwelled in selfish ways when he stalled in settling debts to his stepfather so he could repay in cheaper currency. With four children, Jacky took up residence at Mount Vernon in Washington’s absence and even named his last child George Washington Parke Custis in honor of him.

Jacky, in 1781 volunteered his services as an aide to Washington while before contributing only modestly to the war effort. Amid the unsanitary conditions at Yorktown, Jacky contracted camp fever and, knowing the condition most often to be fatal, expressed a last wish of witnessing Cornwallis’s surrender. He was carted thirty miles to Eltham in New Kent County, the estate of his uncle and his mother, his wife and his father-in-law were summoned to attend to him. By the time Washington arrived he learned the doctors had failed and Jacky was dying. The young man expired a few hours later, three weeks before his twenty-seventh birthday. On French observed remarked that Washington had a profound emotional response to Jacky’s death and was “uncommonly affected.” Washington remained in Eltham, attended to Jacky’s funeral before escorting his stepson’s recent widow and his wife.

Jacky left behind three small daughter and a baby boy. The Washingtons decided to adopt informally the two youngest children, Eleanor Parke Custis, then two years old called “Nelly” and George Washington Parke Custis, seven months old. Washington took seriously his duties toward the children and wrote in his will that it had “always been my intention, since my expectation of having issues has ceased, to consider the grandchildren of my life in the same light as I do my own relations.”

Jacky Custis left behind a murky legacy. Many years later his eldest daughter Elizabeth, raised by her mother and stepfather told how her father would hoist her on a table and forced her to sing indecent songs that he had taught her in order to divert his inebriated friends. “I was animated to exert myself to give him delight,” she wrote. “The servants in the passage would join in their mirth and I, hold my head erect, would strut about the table to receive the praises of the company. My mother remonstrated in vain.” Because he had not had a son until later, Jacky told his guests that little Elizabeth “must make fun for him until he had.”

#jack custis #John custis #flood pressles box #sincerely anonymous #Martha washington #George washington

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sciencespies · 4 years ago

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New Research Suggests Alexander Hamilton Was a Slave Owner

https://sciencespies.com/history/new-research-suggests-alexander-hamilton-was-a-slave-owner/

New Research Suggests Alexander Hamilton Was a Slave Owner

For Jessie Serfilippi, it was an eye-opening moment. As she worked at her computer, she had to keep checking to make sure what she was seeing was real: irrefutable evidence that Alexander Hamilton—the founding father depicted by many historians and even on Broadway as an abolitionist—enslaved other humans.

“I went over that thing so many times, I just had to be sure,” recalls Serfilippi, adding, “I went in to this with the intention of learning about Hamilton’s connection to slavery. Would I find instances of him enslaving people? I did.”

In a recently published paper, “‘As Odious and Immoral a Thing’: Alexander Hamilton’s Hidden History as an Enslaver,” the young researcher details her findings gleaned from primary source materials. One of those documents includes Hamilton’s own cashbook, which is available online at the Library of Congress.

In it, several line items indicate that Hamilton purchased enslaved labor for his own household. While antithetical to the popular image of the founding father, that reference has reinforced the view held by a growing cadre of historians that Hamilton did actively engage in enslaving people.

“I didn’t expect to find what I did at all,” Serfilippi says. “Part of me wondered if I was even wasting my time because I thought other historians would have found this already. Some had said he owned slaves but there was never any real proof.”

One who is not surprised by the revelation is author William Hogeland, who has written about Hamilton and is working on a book about his impact on American capitalism.

“Serfilippi’s research is super exciting,” he says. “Her research confirms what we have suspected, and it takes the whole discussion to a new place. She’s found some actual evidence of enslavement on the part of Hamilton that is just more thoroughgoing and more clearly documented than anything we’ve had before.”

A 1784 entry from Hamilton’s cash books documenting the sale of a woman named Peggy

(Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Hamilton’s connection to slavery is as complex as his personality. Brilliant but argumentative, he was a member of the New York Manumission Society, which advocated for the emancipation of the enslaved. However, he often acted as legal arbiter for others in the transactions of people in bondage.

Serfilippi points out that by conducting these deals for others, Hamilton was in effect a slave trader—a fact overlooked by some historians.

“We can’t get into his head and know what he was thinking,” she says. “Hamilton may have seen enslavement of others as a step up for a white man. That’s the way many white people saw it in that time period.”

Serfilippi works as an interpreter at the Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site in Albany, New Yori, the home of Hamilton’s father-in-law Philip Schuyler, a Revolutionary War general and U.S. senator. Her paper came about as part of her research on the many African Americans enslaved by Schuyler. According to the mansion, Schuyler enslaved as many as 30 laborers between his two properties in Albany and Saratoga, New York. Sefilippi initially looked at Schuyler’s children, including Eliza, who married Hamilton in 1780, and as she examined the founding father’s cashbook, the evidence jumped out at her in several places.

One line item, dated June 28, 1798, shows that Hamilton received a $100 payment for the “term” of a “negro boy.” He had leased the boy to someone else and accepted cash for his use.

“He sent the child to work for another enslaver and then collected the money that child made,” Serfilippi says. “He could only do that if he enslaved that child.”

The smoking gun was at the end of the cashbook, where an anonymous hand is settling Hamilton’s estate following his death. That person wrote down the value of various items, including servants. It was a confirming moment for Serfilippi.

“You can only ascribe monetary value to a person you are enslaving,” she says. “There were free white servants who he hired but they were not included there.”

She adds, “Once you see it in his own handwriting, to me there’s really no question.”

An 1893 photograph of Hamilton’s estate, the Grange

(Public domain via Wikimedia Commons)

In late-18th century New York, according to historian Leslie Howard, the words “servant” and “slave” were often used interchangeably—especially in New York, where enslaved workers were likely to be members of the household staff. Howard, a professor of African American studies at Northwestern University, points out it is an important distinction in understanding the many guises of slavery in 18th-century America.

“In casual usage, enslavers used the term ‘servant’ to refer to people they enslaved, especially if they were referring to those who worked in the household—the idea of a ‘domestic servant’ could be inclusive of enslaved, indentured or free laborers,” she says. “So in reading documents that refer to people as servants, we have to be careful to find other evidence of their actual legal status.”

Harris is impressed by the research in Serfilippi’s paper and how it is reshaping the way we view the founding father. “It’s clear that Hamilton was deeply embedded in slavery,” she adds. “We have to think more carefully about this [idea of Hamilton as] anti-slavery.”

Hamilton played an important role in the establishment of the American government and creation of many of its economic institutions, including Wall Street and a central bank. The illegitimate son of a Scot, he was born and raised in the Caribbean, attended college in New York and then joined the Continental Army at the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775. He eventually became aide-de-camp to General George Washington and saw action at the Battle of Yorktown.

Largely self-taught and self-made, Hamilton found success as a lawyer and served in Congress. He wrote many of the Federalist Papers that helped shape the Constitution. He served as the first Secretary of the Treasury when Washington became president in 1789 and was famously killed in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr in 1804.

Despite being on the $10 bill, Hamilton remained generally ignored by the public until the publication of Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography Alexander Hamilton. The bestseller was read by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who turned it into a watershed Broadway hit in 2015, winning 11 Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize.

For the most part, Chernow and Miranda hewed to the accepted dogma that Hamilton was an abolitionist and only reluctantly participated in the sale of humans as a legal go-between for relatives and friends. Though Chernow states Hamilton may have owned slaves, the notion that he was ardently against the institution pervades his book—and not without some support. The belief is rooted in a biography written 150 years ago by Hamilton’s son, John Church Hamilton, who stated his father never owned slaves.

That idea was later refuted by Hamilton’s grandson, Allan McLane Hamilton, who said his grandfather did indeed own them and his own papers proved it. “It has been stated that Hamilton never owned a negro slave, but this is untrue,” he wrote. “We find that in his books there are entries showing that he purchased them for himself and for others.” However, that admission was generally ignored by many historians since it didn’t fit the established narrative.

“I think it’s fair to say Hamilton opposed the institution of slavery,” Hogeland says. “But, as with many others who did in his time, that opposition was in conflict with widespread practice on involvement in the institution.”

A portrait of Elizabeth Schuyler, Hamilton’s wife

(Public domain via Wikimedia Commons)

In an e-mail, Chernow applauds Serfilippi’s “real contribution to the scholarly literature” but expresses dismay over what he sees as her one-sided approach to Hamilton’s biography. “Whether Hamilton’s involvement with slavery was exemplary or atrocious, it was only one aspect of his identity, however important,” he writes. “There is, inevitably, some distortion of vising by viewing Hamilton’s large and varied life through this single lens.”

In her paper, Serfilippi cites the work of other historians who have similarly investigated Hamilton’s past as enslaver, including John C. Miller, Nathan Schachner and Sylvan Joseph Muldoon. Hogeland also cites a 2010 article by Michelle DuRoss, then a postgraduate student at the University at Albany, State University of New York, who claims Hamilton was likely a slave owner.

“Scholars are aware of this paper,” Hogeland says. “It’s gotten around. It predates Serfilippi’s work and doesn’t have the same documentation, but she makes the argument that Hamilton’s abolitionism is a bit of a fantasy.”

Chernow, however, holds steadfast on his reading of Hamilton. “While Hamilton was Treasury Secretary, his anti-slavery activities did lapse, but he resumed them after he returned to New York and went back into private law practice, working again with the New York Manumission Society,” he writes. “Elected one of its four legal advisers, he helped to defend free blacks when slave masters from out of state brandished bills of sale and tried to snatch them off the New York streets. Does this sound like a man invested in the perpetuation of slavery?”

For her part, Serfilippi is taking the attention she is receiving from historians in stride. At 27, she is part of a new breed of researchers who are reviewing now-digitized collections of historical documents to take a fresh look at what happened in the past. She is pleased her discovery is shedding new light on a familiar figure and adding insight into his character.

More importantly, she hopes it will help deepen our understanding of the difficult issue of slavery in the nation’s history and its impact on individuals—the slavers and the enslaved. The driving force for Serfilippi was to get to know and remember the people held in bondage by the founding father. She recounts one correspondence between Philip Schuler and his daughter and the potent impact of learning the name of one of Hamilton’s slaves.

“Schuyler, just in letters to other people, will casually mention enslavement,” she says. “In one letter he writes to Eliza in 1798, ‘the death of one of your servants by yellow fever has deeply affected my feelings.’ He goes on to identify the servant, a boy by the name of Dick.

“That was a shocking moment for me. This is the first and only name of somebody Hamilton enslaved that I’ve come across. It’s something I’ve never stopped thinking about.”

#History

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grumblebee-trilogy · 8 years ago

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So I had kind of a Sad Thought. At some point, George II has to learn the Real History TM of his grandpas' complex love story, and I imagine at first he must be so hurt and angry about it. Maybe he rages at the ghost he's communicated with (if infrequently) throughout his childhood. Of course, Ben would eventually speak to him (a conversation he's probably already had with his children), and I'm sure George II would come to understand. Still, it would very much be a Loss Of Innocence moment.

He wasn't a young boy anymore, and so came the fateful day of any Tallmadge where their learned the true story of how their name became Washington. George had dreaded this day, having seen Ben's children go through it years ago. And he loved George II. He truly did. The boy did not take it well, throwing his books and throwing a fit so great that the tutor was forced to cancel their lesson early. Ben had told them to give the child time. That this is a part of who they were, and that the anger and pain is something that transcends generations. George II had some particularly volatile words to share with George's portrait, the spot he would normally see George materialize as a child. George watched pitifully through the eyes of his painting as his grandson cursed and screamed and cried, pounding his small fists on the carpet. All Tallmadges looked alike in their grief, and that curse would last an eternity. Maybe he knew it would hurt George to yell at the painting, being the only of the grandchildren gifted enough to see him...to speak to him. That he was still around to hear him curse his name. Either way, George stood patiently and listened.He listened until the boy turned, hearing footsteps. Ben had come down from the tower, stepping lightly until he stopped before the painting to admire it. "He always listened, you know." Ben said. George II only blinked. "I threw countless tantrums like you did. Threw everything he did back into his face. And he stood there and took it." George watched as he helped George II off the floor. "But you must remember this. There are two King Washingtons. The one who brought me here, and the one I made a home with. We can never forgive the one who brought us here, but we can't deny that the one we loved was nothing less than the pillar of strength we needed to restart our lives. After all, he knew the true blood line from here on out would be Tallmadge. He even told me I could reclaim my name after his death." "Why didn't you?"Ben smiled. "Because I saw hope in being a Tallmadge-Washington. And I saw it in you children." He took his hand and led him from the painting. "You too will make your peace with him. He'll give you all the time you need."

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rutlcdge · 7 years ago

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A Moment of Silence | Pt. 1 |

SCENE 001: Part 1: “A Moment of Silence.”

February 17th, 2017.

CLEAN ENERGY INITIATIVES. 115th Congress of the United States; House Committee of Energy and Commerce.

Jonathan pored over the President’s aspirations for clean energy, transcribed elegantly onto a sheet of parchment. A tremor of apprehension fluttered in his stomach whenever he thought of Theresa Wright. It was as if he didn’t have to read at all, as if he knew the President would never provide an agenda that served his family’s interests. It amused him, silently, because her directives forced him to operate underground in Washington. His days were bound to devolve into Congressional meetings, Country Club alliances, and boardroom antics—far from the Public Eye. He would invite his son, Jonathan Jr., and nephew, John Jay Jr., to hash out a deal ensuring natural gas and coal remain the Country’s energy focus. It could cost the family millions of dollars. As Jonathan eased the parchment into a brown manila folder and slipped it into the bottom-right drawer of his desk, he thought of a Washington devoid of Theresa Wright entirely. He wouldn’t have to work underground, then.

Leon Solis should have won the election. Jonathan leaned into his Herman Miller chair of charcoal leather and gazed upon the ceiling. How did he lose… He made a steeple of his fingers upon the armrests, feeling himself searching for recollection. And when he couldn’t remember he furrowed his brow. Might she have torn a page from a Tom Clancy novel and rigged the election in her favor? He smirked. Inconceivable…for a Democrat.

The office phone rang and sent a shrill into the silence. Jonathan straightened in his chair and grabbed it.

“Mister Chief Justice, Mrs. Rutledge has arrived,” chirped the administrative clerk.

“I have no doubt she’s left before permission was granted,” he jested, returning the phone to its modem. He hoisted himself from the chair, gently, and turned to spread the thick velvet curtains that cast an impenetrable shadow over the chambre. The high noon sun filtered in. Jonathan caught the grand stone pillars of the Library of Congress in the distance. The American flag rested at the top of the building threaded to a silver pole, and he gazed as it flickered in the stark wintry breeze.

“There you are, darlin’” greeted Savannah on her way into the Office.

Jonathan turned from the window and smiled, “Good morning, sweetheart,” he said, watching her traipse toward the far right wall. A short and petite woman, Savannah seemed taller than five-feet in a pair of alabaster white kitten heels that accented her form-fitted pantsuit. The collar of her blazer was weaved in gold thread that glistened in tandem with an elegant necklace adorned with aquamarines. She expertly removed the glass top of Macallan 25 he reserved for his private chambers and poured them both a glass. “I didn’t expect you to return so soon,” he remarked, inclining his head ever slight as Savannah traipsed toward the desk.

“From breakfast at the Smithsonian?” she asked, narrowing her eyes suggestively before offering him one of the glasses. Jonathan lowered himself into his chair as his wife perched upon the desk. Savannah waved her hand dismissively after Jonathan took the glass, “I went as a courtesy to Elizabeth Henderson—they hosted us in their Hampton Manor on President’s Day and I thought it’d be sweet to thank her properly,” she explained in her singsong tone, stopping to sip the Macallan 25, “I went thinking it would be just the two of us, but she’d invited ten other women, all of them members of her pet charity ‘Relief for Disasters,’” Jonathan laughed quietly, listening closely, but before he could respond Savannah continued, “She said she’d turned our breakfast into a working breakfast. Can you believe it?”

“Of course I believe it, sweetheart, there are only so many hours in a day,” he spoke softly, his smile brightening when Savannah hoisted herself from the desk and claimed one of the two adjacent Hermann Miller chairs.

When she’d settled in, she shrugged her shoulders, “Washington is unpleasant, darlin,” she murmured, finally, “The people here are so busy there isn’t time to smell the roses and enjoy life—Yankee women.” Jonathan nodded, thoughtfully; he felt the same way when the Supreme Court’s monumental weight pressed upon him. Savannah added, “I’ll be pleased when we’re Home this weekend.”

So will I, Savvy. Setting his glass upon the desk, Jonathan lifted the phone from his modem and punched a familiar number. He glanced at Savannah as the phone started to ring, “Have you heard from three-sticks?” he asked, his tone mired in concern. His eldest grandson, Jonathan K. Rutledge III, hadn’t responded to his call earlier that morning. He called three-sticks every morning to check on him, and he always answered. Until that morning. He frowned when the dial tone bled into the voicemail he and Savannah used for their Welbeck Estate.

“Maybe he went for a swim out back,” his wife consoled; she set her glass on the desk.

“He always answers my call…every morning,” Jonathan bristled, glumly, placing the phone onto its modem. When he lifted his gaze to Savannah’s he noticed a scowl on her face, “To tell him how proud I am of him.” Savannah’s hair was coiffed into an elegant ring of dark grey curls around her small face, accentuating her eyes—the same cerulean as Jonathan’s own.

“Have you tried calling Harvey or George Jr.?” she asked, as if she already knew the answer. He inclined his head, gently, as if to confirm his unspoken answer.

“Darlin,’ you’re not supposed to play favorites—with our grandchildren,” Savannah retrieved her idle glass of Macallan 25, “You have as much cause to be proud of George Jr.—why he graduated Cornell just last year.”

“I’m only human, sweetheart,” he responded, lowering his gaze to the desk. How could his wife understand his connection to three-sticks? He was the third of his name, the third Jonathan K. Rutledge. How could he explain that when he spoke with three-sticks in the morning it reminded him of a future both alive and strong? His grandson was, in many ways, as much the pearl inside his oyster as his wife was the oyster. He glanced at his watch. 11:27 AM.

“Yeah, well…promise you will congratulate all our grandchildren during the toast Sunday night,” she edged, downing the remainder of her glass.

“I promise.” Jonathan brought his glass to his lips, suddenly aware that their week in D.C. was soon at an end. They decided to spend the weekend at Welbeck Estate in Oak Ridge. Ever since Savannah had flown into Washington that Monday three-sticks resided alone at the Estate. He felt uneasy about his missed phone calls, but resolved to quietly withhold judgement until they touched ground in North Carolina. Jonathan stood from his chair and eased into the deep navy blue jacket of his Vanquish suit.

“Where’s Stanley?” asked Savannah, who turned curiously to peer behind her.

“He’s waiting for us, now,” Jonathan fastened the top-button of his two-button jacket before prying the manila folder from the lower-right drawer of his desk. He heard a silent crack as he leaned over, followed by a droll ache in his left ankle. Suppressing a groan, he lifted an aluminum briefcase leaned beside the desk, eased it open, and slipped the manila folder inside, “He’ll escort us to Executive Park and accompany us on the flight into Elk Rivers.” He expected them to touch down in North Carolina at 3:00 PM. To depart Washington, too, had ridden him with relief. Relief from the incessant buzzing and twenty-four-hour hums of energy that should earn D.C. the second-city that never sleeps. If he were honest he’d jumped at the chance for a brief respite from it all. “Let’s not keep him waiting, sweetheart,” he said, offering his hand to help her from her seat. Savannah’s hand fit intricately into Jonathan’s, and to their car they went.

A brisk, wintry breeze whorled amidst bare tree branches and silent pillars of marble. Jonathan lead Savannah along the rear steps of the Supreme Court toward their Lincoln town car. A thick canopy of clouds hovered over D.C. like an impenetrable smog, but Jonathan didn’t remember reading anything in the forecasts predicting a storm. The winter snowstorms had been sparse that year.

“Good Morning, Stanley,” greeted Savannah soothingly as she settled into the rear seat. Jonathan lowered into the seat beside her and closed the door, suppressing a sling of pain ricocheting from his ankle to his knee, “You’re a sight for sore eyes—it’s nice to see you.”

“Morning, Ma’am,” Stanley peered at them from the rearview mirror before jolting their car to life. He smiled before peeling away from the sidewalk, veering onto Second Street with ease. After the forty-minute drive to Washington Executive Airpark, a thirty-eight hundred-foot private hangar for jetliners, Jonathan and Savannah would board the family’s Gulfstream G650 into the Elk River Airport fifty-miles north of their Estate in Oak Ridge. Elk River’s forty-six hundred-foot hangar cost them one-point-five million dollars annually, and its value stemmed from the convenience of arranging flights between their Home and America’s Capitol.

“We ought to go over the weekend’s schedule, darlin’,” offered Savannah; she averted her gaze from the frigid brick houses and mullioned entryways to bodegas just south of downtown D.C., and peered at Jonathan, “We’ll have a private dinner tonight—long overdue.”

Jonathan intertwined his fingers with his wife’s, their hands forming a gentle knot between them, “I look forward to it, sweetheart. I have a gift for you,” he teased, a small smile crinkling his leathery-thin pallor. He brought Savannah’s hand to his lips and bestowed a chaste kiss upon it.

A warm smile graced Savannah’s small face, “Tomorrow morning we’ll have breakfast—I know you wanted to meet with the boys afterward, but try not to keep them too long, darlin.’ Malcolm’s branch of the family is scheduled to arrive at one, by then the barbecue will be arranged across the rear lawn. Ah, and then fireworks to cap off the evening.”

Jonathan nodded. The President’s Energy Initiative rang incessantly in his mind, reminding him of the true purpose of their weekend in Oak Ridge. He invited the power brokers and moneymen of his Family; men such as his nephew John Jay Jr. who chaired the multibillion-dollar Rutledge Trilateral Commission, and his grandnephew, Malcolm IV, senior partner of Taft, Rutledge, and Van Dyke and special attorney of the RTC. Together, Jonathan hoped, they would assemble a formidable war chest capable of tackling the President’s ambitions. Against a hostile White House the Rutledge Family would have to employ subterfuge and cunning, and perhaps ruthlessness above all.

As his mind wandered Savannah continued to prattle on, “After breakfast on Sunday I’ll take the girls for tea and luncheon on the Harbor. We’ll return in time for the football game between the boys.” Jonathan grinned. He, too, looked forward to the Family’s traditional flag-football game on the Front Lawn. He remembered his time as a young, hot-blooded male looking to score at the expense of his quarrelsome cousins. Now he was forced to referee, like an invalid, and it reminded him balefully of his grandson. Who hadn’t answered his call that morning.

Savannah continued, “Later in the evening we’ll have dinner at the House—and you’ll give a toast congratulating all of our grandchildren. Lord knows they’ve earned it,” she took a deep breath, peering over at her husband, “We have to make life tolerable for them, Jon—we shouldn’t pressure them.”

“Life would be more tolerable if that woman were not in the Oval Office,” Jonathan remarked, returning his wife’s pleading stare. But Savannah scoffed and tore her hand from Jonathan’s, inclining her head, her cerulean eyes widened with incredulity as if she could not believe Jonathan would turn their conversation into politics.

“Jonathan,” she said in warning, “the President is not your enemy, we have been over this.”

“That woman is a destructive force to Rutledge vision and purpose, sweetheart,” Jonathan soothed, “I’m not angry—I’m…perplexed. How could she have wormed her way into the White House?”

“Darlin,’ you have to let it go…you’ll drive up your blood pressure—we promised each other to take care of ourselves,” She remonstrated, “Even if the President were your enemy, and she is not, how could she threaten us?” She continued, exasperatedly, gesturing around the car. Somehow Jonathan knew she alluded to their walls of protection; the Capital, the Homes, and the Security that they possessed. Savannah pressed on, her tone lowering in finality, “Bury this personal vendetta.”

Jonathan held his wife’s gaze as long as he could, then he peered out of the tinted window. The Lincoln veered left into Washington Executive Airpark, and in the distance, upon the horizon, he could glimpse the hulking alabaster exterior of their Gulfstream G650. It would not be long before they touched ground in North Carolina. It wouldn’t be long before Jonathan spearheaded a meeting designed to draw battle lines against the White House. As Jonathan sat, gazing over the finely garbed young man and young lady—their personal stewards for the flight—the Chief Justice resolved that no one, not even his wife, would stand in his way.

#[ m. ] : monologue.#[ m. ] : part one : a moment of silence.

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wutbju · 4 years ago

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At approximately 1pm, on March 26th, 2020, with her husband and daughter by her side, Linda Faye (Moen) Hurd left her earthly body for the presence of her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, freed of the bondage of her earthly tent, now awaiting the hope of the Resurrection! Linda Faye was born on a warm summer day, in the beautiful little town of Burlington, Washington, on the 19th of July 1940. Her parents, Melkor and Edythe (Marchant) Moen, were residents of Montbourne on the east slopes overlooking Big Lake. Melkor was an immigrant from Norway and Edythe the only daughter of successful dairy farmers, James and Ethelyn (Angevine) Marchant of Day Creek. As the youngest of 4 children, and a distant 13 years behind her youngest brother Donny, she was teased relentlessly about being spoiled...we don't recall her ever deny that claim. As a young girl, she came to saving faith in the finished work of Jesus at a Daily Vacation Bible School lead by Milton and Gudrun Hanstad in the Big Lake area. Later, in 1953, her parents came to the LORD at the Billy Graham Crusade in Seattle. That led them to Big Lake neighbors across the lake, Earl and Pauline Sager and ultimately to the doors of the Emmanuel Baptist Church, where they were discipled and fed. The Moens moved to the Marchant home on Lakeview Blvd where many hospitable occasions were spent on the shore of Big Lake in the summer kitchen. That environment led to the formation of friendships that lasted a lifetime with Barbara (Nelson) Fisher, Kay (Wylie) McPherson, Elaine (Dalseg) Bakke and many others. When time had run its course and she had graduated from Sedro-Woolley High School in 1958, she bravely took a cross-continental train ride to attend Bob Jones University in Greenville, SC, along with Jim Frey and others from the Emmanuel Baptist youth group. In her brief year there, she picked up her southern charm which was evident even in her last days. Closer to home was Seattle Pacific College, which was known for producing the finest teachers and nurses in western Washington. She enrolled in her second year, and quickly caught the eye of a young man with "mahogany hair", as described by her mother Edythe when she met him. That young man was Roger Day Hurd, of Des Moines, WA, who had previously lived in Avon for about 4 years while his father was the pastor of Avon Methodist Church. They were married on November 11th, 1961, on the 40th anniversary of Melkor and Edythe Moens' union, in the Emmanuel Baptist Church on Cleveland and Hazel in Mount Vernon. On the Columbus Day Storm of 1962, she gave birth to a son, Roger Mark, and on a beautiful spring day in 1965, a beautiful baby girl Ruth Alison, completing the idyllic life of her young family. Linda Faye was an excellent pianist following in the steps of her oldest sister Marjorie, and their mother Edythe. She brought that gift to the LORD nearly every Sunday for many years in the congregation of Emmanuel Baptist Church as well as to the Choraliers of Mount Vernon Christian School, even though she was Norwegian and not Dutch! She loved making a home on the end of Dunbar Lane on the west side of Mount Vernon with a large garden and orchard, using the tried and true freezing and canning methods to provide for her family all winter long. She made frequent trips to Orcas Island to visit her parents, brother Jimmy and sister Marjorie, who had moved there in 1966. This gave Roger the perfect reason for getting his pilots' license and an airplane to speed up those trips and avoid the HWY 20 Swinomish Channel drawbridge and the ferry. She was also brave and went on many adventures with Roger, such as motorcycle trips with many friends from Emmanuel, parasailing, sailing and bodysurfing in Hawaii. In 1989, she graduated from Seattle Pacific University, fulfilling her lifelong goal after lovingly raising her two children as well as her husband Roger, who since becoming a pilot had reverted to childhood. At the time, she had been working at Skagit Valley College in the Adult Learning Center and spent the next 18 years helping many people reach their educational goals with her gentle spirit. Having been a small girl watching her two older brothers play football for the Sedro-Woolley Cubs, she was a fierce fan at her grandchildren's soccer, football, baseball, basketball games and track meets. There was never any doubt she was there! After retiring in 2007, she went on more motorcycle trips with Roger and friends, as well as a trip with Roger and friends from Emmanuel to Israel and Turkey, to trace the footsteps of Paul. She spoiled her 2 Shelties, Sadie and Lucy and continued her education service by listening to children read at Centennial Elementary School for several years until that became too much. Whilst braving her husband's cancer diagnosis and his heart attack, she began to forget where she parked her car which culminated in not being able to find familiar places while driving. Ultimately, she came to learn that Alzheimer's was the culprit and her husband cared for her in their home of 36 years in Avon until just a month ago. Along the way, she brightened his days, as well as the days of the staff and residents at Bradford House with her dancing and Creekside Memory Care with her visiting other residents. She is survived here on earth by her husband of 58 years, Roger of Avon, brother Don and Lil Moen of Bellingham, daughter Ruth and Doug Jacobson of Custer, son Roger Mark and Suzan Hurd of Bow, granddaughters Annalyse and Lanz Lipana of Los Angeles, Claire and Ethan Last of Bellingham, grandsons Jonathan and Victoria Hurd of Bow, Jonah Jacobson of Fife and James Hurd of Ellensburg, and several nieces and nephews. She is survived in eternity by her father Melkor, mother Edythe, Uncle George Moen, sister Marjorie and Mike Olney and brother Jimmy Moen, all who went up to Jesus before her. Her lifelong dream was for her family, the people she met, those she worked with and the world ultimately, to come to saving faith in Jesus Christ and live with her forever. She was a brave fighter to the end, powered by the Holy Spirit and the love of her family, who suggest memorials in her name to Hospice NW or Bradford House. A memorial service will take place after the current crisis has passed. Inurnment will take place under the care of Hawthorne Funeral Home & Memorial with a private family service when her grandchildren can all be here.

#Bob Jones University #Obituary #BJU Alumni Association #BJU Hall of Fame #Linda Faye (Moen) Hurd #Class of 1959

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blackkudos · 7 years ago

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Colin Powell

Colin Luther Powel (/ˈkoʊlᵻn/; born April 5, 1937) is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. Powell was born in Harlem as the son of Jamaican immigrants. During his military career, Powell also served as National Security Advisor (1987–1989), as Commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command (1989) and as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989–1993), holding the latter position during the Persian Gulf War. Powell was the first, and so far the only, African American to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under U.S. President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, the first African American to serve in that position.

Powell was born in New York City and was raised in the South Bronx. His parents, Luther and Maud Powell, immigrated to the United States from Jamaica. Powell was educated in the New York City public schools, graduating from the City College of New York (CCNY), where he earned a bachelor's degree in geology. He also participated in ROTC at CCNY and received a commission as an Army second lieutenant upon graduation in June 1958. His further academic achievements include a Master of Business Administration degree from George Washington University.

Powell was a professional soldier for 35 years, during which time he held myriad command and staff positions and rose to the rank of 4-star General. His last assignment, from October 1, 1989 to September 30, 1993, was as the 12th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest military position in the Department of Defense. During this time, he oversaw 28 crises, including Operation Desert Storm in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He also formulated the Powell Doctrine.

Following his military retirement, Powell wrote his best-selling autobiography, My American Journey. In addition, he pursued a career as a public speaker, addressing audiences across the country and abroad. Prior to his appointment as Secretary of State, Powell was the chairman of America's Promise - The Alliance for Youth, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to mobilizing people from every sector of American life to build the character and competence of young people. He was nominated by President Bush on December 16, 2000 as Secretary of State. After being unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate, he was sworn in as the 65th Secretary of State on January 20, 2001.

Powell is the recipient of numerous U.S. and foreign military awards and decorations. Powell's civilian awards include two Presidential Medal of Freedom, the President's Citizens Medal, the Congressional Gold Medal, the Secretary of State Distinguished Service Medal, and the Secretary of Energy Distinguished Service Medal. Several schools and other institutions have been named in his honor and he holds honorary degrees from universities and colleges across the country. Powell is married to the former Alma Vivian Johnson of Birmingham, Alabama. The Powell family includes son Michael (ex-chairman of the Federal Communications Commission); daughters Linda and Anne; daughter-in-law Jane; and grandsons Jeffrey and Bryan.

In 2016, while not a candidate, Powell received three electoral votes for the office of President of the United States.

Early life and education

Powell was born on April 5, 1937, in Harlem, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, to Jamaican immigrant parents Maud Arial (née McKoy) and Luther Theophilus Powell. His parents were both of mixed African and Scots ancestry. Luther worked as a shipping clerk and Maud as a seamstress. Powell was raised in the South Bronx and attended Morris High School, from which he graduated in 1954. (This school has since closed.)

While at school, Powell worked at a local baby furniture store, where he picked up Yiddish from the eastern European Jewish shopkeepers and some of the customers. He also served as a Shabbos goy, helping Orthodox families with needed tasks on the Sabbath. He received his BS degree in geology from the City College of New York in 1958 and has said he was a 'C average' student. He later earned an MBA degree from the George Washington University in 1971, after his second tour in Vietnam.

Despite his parents' pronunciation of his name as /ˈkɒlᵻn/, Powell has pronounced his name /ˈkoʊlᵻn/ since childhood, after the heroic World War II flyer Colin P. Kelly Jr. Public officials and radio and television reporters have used Powell's preferred pronunciation.

Military career

Powell was a professional soldier for 35 years, holding a variety of command and staff positions and rising to the rank of General.

Training

Upon graduation, he received a commission as an Army second lieutenant. After attending basic training at Fort Benning, Powell was assigned to the 48th Infantry, in West Germany, as a platoon leader.

Vietnam War

In his autobiography, Powell said he is haunted by the nightmare of the Vietnam War and felt that the leadership was very ineffective.

He returned to Vietnam as a major in 1968, serving in the 23rd Infantry Division, then as assistant chief of staff of operations for the Americal Division. During the second tour in Vietnam he was decorated for bravery after he survived a helicopter crash, single-handedly rescuing three others, including division commander Major General Charles Martin Gettys, from the burning wreckage.

After the Vietnam War

Powell served a White House Fellowship under President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1973. During 1975–1976 he attended the National War College, Washington, D.C.

In his autobiography, My American Journey, Powell named several officers he served under who inspired and mentored him. As a lieutenant colonel serving in South Korea, Powell was very close to General Henry "Gunfighter" Emerson. Powell said he regarded Emerson as one of the most caring officers he ever met. Emerson insisted his troops train at night to fight a possible North Korean attack, and made them repeatedly watch the television film Brian's Song to promote racial harmony. Powell always professed that what set Emerson apart was his great love of his soldiers and concern for their welfare. After a race riot occurred, in which African American soldiers almost killed a Caucasian officer, Powell was charged by Emerson to crack down on black militants; Powell's efforts led to the discharge of one soldier, and other efforts to reduce racial tensions.

A "political general"

In 1986, Powell took over the command of V Corps in Frankfurt, Germany, from Robert Lewis "Sam" Wetzel.

Following the Iran Contra scandal, Powell became, at the age of 49, Ronald Reagan's National Security Advisor, serving from 1987 to 1989 while retaining his Army commission as a lieutenant general.

Later that year, President George H. W. Bush selected him as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

During this time, he oversaw 28 crises, including the invasion of Panama in 1989 to remove General Manuel Noriega from power and Operation Desert Storm in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. During these events, Powell earned his nickname, "the reluctant warrior." He rarely advocated military intervention as the first solution to an international crisis, and instead usually prescribed diplomacy and containment.

As a military strategist, Powell advocated an approach to military conflicts that maximizes the potential for success and minimizes casualties. A component of this approach is the use of overwhelming force, which he applied to Operation Desert Storm in 1991. His approach has been dubbed the "Powell Doctrine". Powell continued as chairman of the JCS into the Clinton presidency but as a dedicated "realist" he considered himself a bad fit for an administration largely made up of liberal internationalists. He clashed with then-U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright over the Bosnian crisis, as he opposed any military interventions that didn't involve US interests.

Dates of rankAwards and decorationsBadges

Medals and ribbonsForeign decorations13 Rules of Leadership

First printed in the August 13, 1989 issue of Parade magazine, these are Colin Powell's 13 Rules of Leadership.

It ain't as bad as you think.

Get mad, then get over it.

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

It can be done.

Be careful what you choose. You may get it.

Don't let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.

You can't make someone else's choices.

Check small things.

Share credit.

Remain calm. Be kind.

Have a vision.

Don't take counsel of your fears or naysayers.

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

Potential presidential candidate

Powell was mentioned as a potential candidate in the 2000 U.S. presidential election, but decided against running. Once Texas Governor George W. Bush secured the Republican nomination, Powell endorsed him for president and spoke at the 2000 Republican National Convention. Bush eventually won, and Powell was appointed Secretary of State.

In the electoral college vote count of 2016, Powell received three votes from faithless electors from Washington.

Secretary of State

Most observers praised Powell's oratorical skills. However, Britain's Channel 4 News reported soon afterwards that a UK intelligence dossier that Powell had referred to as a "fine paper" during his presentation had been based on old material and plagiarized an essay by American graduate student Ibrahim al-Marashi. A 2004 report by the Iraq Survey Group concluded that the evidence that Powell offered to support the allegation that the Iraqi government possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) was inaccurate.

In an interview with Charlie Rose, Powell contended that prior to his UN presentation, he had merely four days to review the data concerning WMD in Iraq.

Wilkerson said that he inadvertently participated in a hoax on the American people in preparing Powell's erroneous testimony before the United Nations Security Council.

Additionally, Powell has been critical of other instances of U.S. foreign policy in the past, such as its support for the 1973 Chilean coup d'état. From two separate interviews in 2003, Powell stated in one about the 1973 event "I can't justify or explain the actions and decisions that were made at that time. It was a different time. There was a great deal of concern about communism in this part of the world. Communism was a threat to the democracies in this part of the world. It was a threat to the United States." In another interview, however, he also simply stated "With respect to your earlier comment about Chile in the 1970s and what happened with Mr. Allende, it is not a part of American history that we're proud of."

Life after diplomatic service

In July 2005, Powell joined Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, a well-known Silicon Valley venture capital firm, with the title of "strategic limited partner."

In 2007 he joined the Board of Directors of Steve Case's new company Revolution Health. Powell also serves on the Council on Foreign Relations Board of directors.

In 2008, Powell served as a spokesperson for National Mentoring Month, a campaign held each January to recruit volunteer mentors for at-risk youth.

Soon after Barack Obama's 2008 election, Powell began being mentioned as a possible cabinet member. He was not nominated.

In September 2009, Powell advised President Obama against surging US forces in Afghanistan. The president announced the surge the following December.

On March 14, 2014, Salesforce.com announced that Powell had joined its Board of Directors.

Political views

Powell endorsed President Obama in 2008 and again in 2012. When asked why he is still a Republican on Meet the Press he said, "I’m still a Republican. And I think the Republican Party needs me more than the Democratic Party needs me. And you can be a Republican and still feel strongly about issues such as immigration, and improving our education system, and doing something about some of the social problems that exist in our society and our country. I don’t think there's anything inconsistent with this."

Views on the Iraq War

Role in presidential election of 2008

Powell donated the maximum allowable amount to John McCain's campaign in the summer of 2007 and in early 2008, his name was listed as a possible running mate for Republican nominee McCain's bid during the 2008 U.S. presidential election. However, on October 19, 2008, Powell announced his endorsement of Barack Obama during a Meet the Press interview, citing "his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities", in addition to his "style and substance." He additionally referred to Obama as a "transformational figure". Powell further questioned McCain's judgment in appointing Sarah Palin as the vice presidential candidate, stating that despite the fact that she is admired, "now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don't believe she's ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president." He said that Obama's choice for vice-president, Joe Biden, was ready to be president. He also added that he was "troubled" by the "false intimations that Obama was Muslim." Powell stated that "[Obama] is a Christian—he's always been a Christian... But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America." Powell then mentioned Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, a Muslim American soldier in the U.S. Army who served and died in the Iraq War. He later stated, "Over the last seven weeks, the approach of the Republican Party has become narrower and narrower [...] I look at these kind of approaches to the campaign, and they trouble me." Powell concluded his Sunday morning talk show comments, "It isn't easy for me to disappoint Sen. McCain in the way that I have this morning, and I regret that [...] I think we need a transformational figure. I think we need a president who is a generational change and that's why I'm supporting Barack Obama, not out of any lack of respect or admiration for Sen. John McCain." Later in a December 12, 2008, CNN interview with Fareed Zakaria, Powell reiterated his belief that during the last few months of the campaign, Palin pushed the Republican party further to the right and had a polarizing impact on it.

Views on the Obama administration

In an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos during ABC's coverage of President Obama's second inauguration, Powell criticized members of the Republican Party who "demonize[d] the president". He called on GOP leaders to publicly denounce such talk.

2016 presidential election

In March 2016, Powell denounced the "nastiness" of the 2016 Republican primaries during an interview on CBS This Morning. He compared the race to a "reality show", and stated that the campaign had gone "into the mud".

On September 13, 2016, emails were obtained that revealed Powell's private communications regarding both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Powell privately reiterated his comments regarding Clinton's email scandal, writing, "I have told Hillary's minions repeatedly that they are making a mistake trying to drag me in, yet they still try," and complaining that "Hillary’s mafia keeps trying to suck me into it" in another email. In another email discussing Clinton's controversy, Powell noted that she should have told everyone what she did "two years ago", and said that she has not "been covering herself with glory." Writing on the 2012 Benghazi attack controversy surrounding Clinton, Powell said to then U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, "Benghazi is a stupid witch hunt." Commenting on Clinton in a general sense, Powell mused that "Everything [Clinton] touches she kind of screws up with hubris", and in another email stated "I would rather not have to vote for her, although she is a friend I respect."

Powell referred to Donald Trump as a "national disgrace", with "no sense of shame". He wrote candidly of Trump's role in the birther movement, which he referred to as "racist". Powell suggested that the media ignore Trump, saying, "To go on and call him an idiot just emboldens him." The emails were obtained by the media as the result of a hack.

Powell endorsed Clinton on October 25, 2016, stating it was "because I think she's qualified, and the other gentleman is not qualified."

Despite not running in the election, Powell received three electoral votes for president from faithless electors in Washington who had pledged to vote for Clinton, coming in third overall. After Barack Obama, Powell was only the second African American to receive electoral votes in a presidential election. He was also the first Republican since 1984 to receive electoral votes from Washington in a presidential election, as well as the first Republican African American to do so.