Colin Powell, the first black secretary of state in U.S. history and an Army general who helped shape U.S. policy in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, has died of COVID-19 complications, his family said in a statement posted on Facebook on Monday.

The Powell family stated, “General Colin L. Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, passed away this morning due to complications from Covid 19.”

“We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather, and a great American,” they added. The family also thanked the staff at Walter Reed National Medical Center. Powell was fully vaccinated, according to the statement. 

Colin Powell was a trailblazer for African-Americans. Born to Jamaican immigrant parents, he rose from humble beginnings in Harlem, NY, to join the Army in 1958 after attending ROTC at the City College of New York. 

He served two tours of duty in Vietnam and was wounded in action. After attending the Army’s War College, he was promoted to brigadier general above his peers. In 1987, under the Reagan Administration, he became the nation’s first African-American national security adviser. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush tapped Powell to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Operation Desert Storm

Colin Powell Norman Schwartzkopf
Generals Colin Powell and Norman Schwartzkopf sit in a briefing during the first Gulf War. (Wikimedia Commons)

“First we’re going to cut it off. Then we’re going to kill it,” Powell had stated about the Iraqi army in a no-nonsense quote to the media during the first Gulf War. 

He later was nominated as the secretary of state by George W. Bush and served for four years, before being succeeded by Condoleezza Rice. 

He did make mistakes, however. As secretary of state, Powell made the case for invading Iraq, including in a speech he gave to the United Nations in 2003. He claimed Iraq had misled UN inspectors and had hidden weapons of mass destruction from them.