BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : GENERAL COLIN POWELL FOUR STAR AFRICAN AMERICAN GENERAL : GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK GENIUS "

Colin Luther Powell is a United States Statesman and a retired Four Star General in the United States Army. He wsa the 65th United States Secretary Of State (2001  to 2005)  serving under President George W, Bush. He was the first African American appointed to that position. He was the first and so far the only African American to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Military/Diplomat, born  Colin Luther Powell on April 3rd 1937 in Harlem, New York. The son of Jamaican Immigrant Luther and Maud Powell, Colin was raised in the South Bronx. Powell was educated in the New York City Public School and graduated from Morris High School in 1954 without any definite plans for where he wanted to go in life. It was at city college of New York where Powell studied Geology he found his calling  - In the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) He soon became Commander of his Unit and this experience set him on a military career and gave him structure and direction in his life.


After graduation in 1958 Powell was Commission as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army. While station at Fort D evens, Massachusetts, Colin met Alma Vivian Johnson of Birmingham Alabama and they married in 1962. The couple now have three children, a son Micheal and two daughters Linda and Annmarie. The same year he was one of 16,000 advisers sent to South Vietnam by President John Kennedy. In 1963 Powell was wounded by a punji-stick booby trap while patrolling the Vietnam - Laotian boarder. During his first tour of duty he was awarded the Purple Heart and a year later the Bronze

Star.