Colin Powell, the first Black US secretary of state, died of complications from Covid-19 at the age of 84, according to his family on Facebook. The Powell family wrote on Facebook, noting he was fully vaccinated, “General Colin L. Powell, former U.S. The Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff passed away this morning due to complications from Covid 19.”
Powell had Parkinson’s disease and multiple myeloma, a malignancy of plasma cells that inhibits the immune system, according to Peggy Cifrino, Powell’s former head of staff.
Powell was a brilliant and trailblazing professional soldier whose career led him from combat action in Vietnam to being Ronald Reagan’s first Black national security adviser. He was also President George H.W. Bush’s youngest and first African American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In the aftermath of the US-led coalition victory in the Gulf War, his national popularity rose, and he was considered a top contender to become the first Black President of the United States for a time in the mid-1990s. He became the country’s highest-ranking Black public figure, ranking fourth in the presidential line of succession when he became Bush’s secretary of state in 2001. Powell is now survived by his wife, Alma Vivian (Johnson) Powell, and three children, whom he married in 1962.