His family’s story of immigrating to the US and their children going on to be successful and upwardly mobile is the American story I grew up with.
He worked for a Jewish family that owned a furniture store who told him to go to college. He always had planned to go to school, but he remembered that moment as very meaningful that they cared about him. Powell also learned Yiddish living and working in that part of the City. I think it is a nice story and so typical of NYC, and what I think of as my America. People from different backgrounds working together to help themselves, their community, and the country.
He benefited from NYC public schools K-12, including attending college through the city’s free program that was a well respected college system, and ROTC.
Supposedly, Powell had taken out a lot of misinformation before presenting to the UN, but he still has that speech as a blemish on his record for sure. To think the second Iraqi war could have been completely avoided really has to give us pause about any time we choose to go to war.
It’s sad to hear COVID hastened his death. He had cancer, was 84, and possibly the vaccines had never given him immunity or very little.