His record of achievement – from chairman of the Joint Chiefs to secretary of state – symbolized the countless contributions newcomers make to this country every day.īut he was also a Black man, deeply proud of his identity and committed to helping young people of color. Like so many other immigrants and their children, he saw the military as a way to serve the country his parents had chosen and become fully American. One way he exemplified those words was his choice of careers. Colin Powell exemplified the power, the complexity and the grace in those words.” And as I remember Powell, who died this week at age 84, I think of the lesson that tale conveys and how it is central to his own life story.Īs critic Robin Givhan wrote in The Washington Post, “For a generation of Black Americans who came of age during the civil rights era, success was accompanied by a singular phrase often repeated by friends and family, and total strangers, too: Don’t forget where you came from.
This was especially true for immigrant families like his. The point of that story, Powell emphasized, was the critical importance of community, of folks taking responsibility for each other. The neighborhood telegraph system was as swift as any IM or tweet is today. If he ever got into trouble, which was frequently, word of his misdeeds reached his mother long before he got home. Behind every window or curtain, he told me, there was a pair of eyes, usually belonging to an elderly woman, watching the streets and the children who played there – not just their own relatives, but everyone else’s, too. Many people are sharing their favorite Colin Powell stories, and here’s mine: As the child of immigrants from Jamaica, he grew up in a working-class neighborhood of the South Bronx.
0 kommentar(er)
