Remembering Colin Powell
When Colin Powell launched onto the scene in the late 1980s, I was a college student swelling with pride. An African-American man had reached the pinnacle of the United States Military, power and leadership within the confines of the George H. W. Bush White House. He accomplished all of this during a time in the waning days of another respected Black leader US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
I hoped one day I would meet him, interview him.
There were all kinds of intersections: His wife hailed from Birmingham where my Aunt Edna lived, he worked with one of my mentors in Washington DC, the Press Secretary of Barbara Bush, and then his sister lived in Orange County, CA, where I was working at the time.
I remember feeling there was no way, when I was at the Orange Country News Channel - 24 hour news start up, that I would ever get a shot at interviewing him. But maybe I would have a shot at his sister! Marilyn Powell Berns, had lived there with her husband for years. So I called her up!
She was very much her brother’s sister, unassuming, reserved, dignified!
But, once she warmed up to me, the veil on life with her little brother took hilarious form! With delight, she described Colin the child as a bit of a “nuisance”, a late bloomer who was an average boy trying to keep up with the older kids when they were growing up in the Bronx. The kid who played stick ball in city lots and spent part of his teen years putting together baby furniture in a local store, showed no signs of greatness she recounted.
All that changed once he put on a uniform, and entered his college Reserve Officer Training Corps.
Berns watched with wonderment that kid from the Bronx blossom as a young lieutenant to a four-star general and the first black to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs and later the first black Secretary of State.
I got the chance to hear the pride resonating from a witness to his growth and development. You would think she’d get use to all the praise or his prominence, but she described how she’d run into another room on hearing his name announced on TV, or clipping newspaper or magazine articles, or receiving notes from friends. Not so!
Many of those keeping the fourth grade teacher up on his goings and comings were her students at the time! She got a kick out of that! Especially because he was a true example of inspiration for them, having come into his own socially late but being a star student, heading off to college at the age of 16. The big sister confided she was a bit worried about him going off to City College of New York at such a young age! She seemed to take comfort in the matter of fact nature he inherited from their Mother: an innate ability to say what he meant, say it well and say it simply!
Structure she told me was Powell’s strength serum. ROTC provided a wealth of it, especially the unit’s Pershing Rifles, a crack drill team that traveled around the state performing and competing. It was an extension of his family, the rules and order she said gave him security.
Like so many successful Black families, Berns told me education was at the forefront. Their parents, Maud Ariel & Luther’s saw to that. They died before seeing Powell reach the pinnacle of success, but his mother did see him receive his first star as an Army brigadier general--an event, his sister said, was filled with excitement and admiration.
Married with two grown daughters, the career educator and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs keep in touch by phone once a week, proud of the fact that he never lost his sense of self and stayed so very down to earth!
I remember her saying “attitude was everything but so was opportunity.” And for Berns, the opportunity, the turning point of his life, the one that launched him, was his White House Fellowship in 1972, one of 17 people chosen from a list of 1500 applicants.
That, she said, AND his 1960 marriage to his wife, Alma, whom she described as “strong and independent,” made all the difference, launched him into history!
What’s most relatable to me about Colin Powell, his shrewdness, an understanding of how the world works, and figuring hurdle all the obstacles. He acknowledged facing racism, and despite his politics, he never acquiesced his community, or downplayed its circumstances. That was Powell’s gift
Perhaps The funniest thing that Berns shared with me about her little brother, was his name itself. Rather, the mis-pronunciation of it. Most of us call him CO-len Powell. But to his family, he was Kah-len. I got such a kick out of the fact that he rarely corrected anyone. According to Berns, Folks have been getting it wrong for years.
Berns passed away in 2005, four years before I had the pleasure of meeting her dear brother in person.
The former Secretary of State was being honored at the National Urban League’s Equal Opportunity Dinner in New York City with the distinguished Humanitarian Award.
I sat next to him, chatting him up as much as possible. He was all I expected, AND MORE. unexpectedly FUNNY with a Deadpan delivery. Even more special, was watching him Light Up when his friend slipped in to surprise him that night. Teasingly, Quincy Jones told me, I couldn’t stand to see him here all alone, no friends, no family, no entourage, among this new generation that barely remembers him. He added, I had to make sure he has an audience!
It was so fun to watch these two legends spar!
I don’t remember Jones’s exact dig, but before Powell walked onstage, he shouted something like: Don't blow it!
The General smiled and delivered the last word!.
“Never! I assume the position!”
Indeed he did!
