Colin Powell, the youngest and first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the first Black person to lead the State Department, died Monday at the age of 84. We look back on his storied career in photos. Read more about his life here.
Lt. Gen. Colin Powell, the sent number two man on the National Security Council, was nominated by President Reagan to succeed Frank Carlucci as his National Security Adviser and toad the NSC. Powell is shown at a White House ceremony on Thursday, Nov. 5, 1987 in Washington for outgoing Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)Gen. Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, points to a group of American troops at an airbase after his arrival in Saudi Arabia on Thursday, Sept. 13, 1990. Powell visited American forces stationed on the ground in Saudi Arabia and on ships in the Gulf, as well as Saudi military officials. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Colin Powell talks with a soldier who has stomach problems while visiting the Air Transportable Hospital, a part of the 1st Tactical Hospital of Langley Air Force Base, Va., set up in an air base in Saudi Arabia, Sept. 13, 1990. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Colin Powell, left, has a word with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, Friday, Dec. 14, 1990 in Washington as the two prepared to testify before the House Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill, concerning developments in the Persian Gulf. (AP Photo/Doug Mills)Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, demonstrates his skills with a basketball with the Harlem Globetrotters during a visit to his Pentagon office in Washington, March 11, 1991. The Globetrotters are, from left, Lou Dunbar, Matthew Jackson and Osborne Lockhart. (AP Photo/John Duricka)General Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, addresses U.S. troops at the Diyarbakir military base in southeastern Turkey on Thursday, May 31, 1991. Powell visited Turkey to talk with the American troops involved in the allied operation to save the Iraqi Kurds. (AP Photo)Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and Gens. Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell attend a memorial service for war dead at the Cathedral of St. John in New York on Sunday, June 9, 1991, the Divine amid protesters shouting “Murderer!” and “Death” in the Cathedral during their speeches. From left are Matilda Cuomo, wife of New York Governor Mario Cuomo, New York City Mayor David Dinkins, Cheney, Powell and Schwarzkopf. (AP Photo/Ron Frehm)President George Bush loans his glasses to first lady Barbara Bush as she pins a Medal of Freedom on Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a White House ceremony, July 3, 1991. (AP Photo/Doug Mills)Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, left, smiles during his meeting with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, right, at the Kremlin in Moscow on Tuesday, July 23, 1991. Seated to Gorbachev’s right are Defense Minister Dmitri Yazov and Soviet Armed Forces Chief of Staff, General Mikhail Moiseyev. (AP Photo)Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Gen. Colin Powell sits in the cockpit of a Soviet SU-27 as he discusses the plane with a Soviet pilot, right, during his visit to a Soviet air base at Kubinka, approximately 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Moscow, July 24, 1991. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, right, shares a laugh with Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, during Powell’s visit to the Prime Minister’s official residence in Tokyo, Nov. 18, 1991. Powell was on a three-day visit to Japan. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Colin Powell points to a graphic during a news conference at the Pentagon on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 1992 in Washington to discuss the Defense Department’s 1993 budget. President Bush proposed a $286 billion, post-Cold War defense budget that ends production of the B-2 bomber, the Seawolf submarine and the nation’s most powerful nuclear warhead. (AP Photo/Marcy Nighswander)Keynote Speaker General Colin Powell celebrates with Derick Villar of Bloomington, Ill., at the 56th Commencement of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York on Monday, June 16, 1992. Villar was the final graduate of the 159 member class to receive his diploma from General Powell. (AP Photo/Andrew Savulich)President Bill Clinton, escorted by Defense Secretary Les Aspin, right, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Colin Powell, leaves the Pentagon after meeting with Aspin and the Joint Chiefs in Washington on April 8, 1993. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Colin Powell speaks to reporters outside the White House on Thursday, April 30, 1993 in Washington following a two hour meeting with President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Warren Christopher on the situation in Bosnia. (AP Photo/Marcy Nighswander)Outgoing Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Colin Powell hugs Marilyn Quayle as her husband, former Vice President Quayle gets a hug from his wife Alma after Powell’s retirement ceremony on Thursday, Sept. 30, 1993 at Ft. Myer in Arlington, Virginia. Vice President and Mrs. Gore are behind the Powells. (AP Photo/Doug Mills)Former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright, left, and Colin Powell, talk after a discussion with former Secretaries of State at the taping of CNN’s “The Next President: A World of Challenges”, Monday, Sept. 15, 2008, at George Washington University in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)Secretary of State Colin Powell looks on as President George W. Bush speaks at the State Department in Washington on May 27, 2003. Powell, who in four decades of public life served as the nation’s top soldier, diplomat and national security adviser, and whose speech at the United Nations in 2003 helped pave the way for the United States to go to war in Iraq, died on Monday, Oct. 18, 2021. He was 84. (Doug Mills/ The New York Times)From left, Colin Powell, then President George W. Bush’s nominee to be secretary of state, shares a laugh with Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), then the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Capitol Hill on Jan. 9, 2001. Powell, who in four decades of public life served as the nation’s top soldier, diplomat and national security adviser, and whose speech at the United Nations in 2003 helped pave the way for the United States to go to war in Iraq, died on Monday, Oct. 18, 2021. He was 84. (Paul Hosefros/The New York Times)Colin Powell, center, dances onstage with Nigerian Hip-Hop group Olu Maintain at the Africa Rising Festival, held at the Royal Albert Hall, Tuesday Oct. 14, 2008, in London. The retired General and former U.S Secretary of State, was the key speaker in the final leg of the international Africa Rising Festival. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan)Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, left, with President Barack Obama, talks with reporters about importance of ratifying the New START Treaty, in the Oval Office at the White in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2010, with Vice President Joe Biden listening at right. Amid signs that several Senate Republicans were shifting in favor of ratifying the U.S.-Russian nuclear arms reduction treaty, Powell, a former Army general, was there to lend his support to START. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)Colin Powell, left, and Alma Powell are seen at the 42nd NAACP Image Awards on Friday, March 4, 2011, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)America’s Promise Alliance Chair, former Secretary of State General Colin Powell prepares to leave the White House in Washington, Monday, July 18, 2011, after speaking to reporters following a meeting with President Barack Obama. Obama hosted an education roundtable with business leaders to discuss transforming the American education system. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)Former Secretary of State Colin Powell speaks during the groundbreaking ceremony for the U.S. Diplomacy Center at the State Department in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2014. Secretary of State John Kerry hosted five of his predecessors, including Powell, in a rare public reunion for the groundbreaking of a museum commemorating the achievements of American statesmanship. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)In this December 20, 1989 file photo, General Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefs newsmen at the Pentagon on the predawn invasion designed to oust General Manuel Antonio Noriega and bring him to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges. (AP Photo/Doug Mills, File)President Bush gathers with past and present secretaries of State and Defense for a group portrait in the Oval Office at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2006 in Washington. From left: Former Defense Secretary Harold Brown; former Secretaries of State Lawrence Eagleburger, James Baker and Colin Powell; James Schlesinger, former defense secretary; current Defense chief Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, President Bush, present Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice; former Secretary of State George P. Shultz; former Defense Secretaries Melvin Laird and Robert McNamarra; Madeleine Albright, the first woman to be secretary of State; one of her predecessors – Alexander Haig; and former Defense Secretaries Frank Carlucci, William Perry and William Cohen. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)Secretary of State Colin Powell, center, and John Danforth, right, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, listening to President Bush during his address before the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2004. (Richard Perry/The New York Times)Secretary of State Colin Powell, right, confers with CIA Director George Tenet before addressing the United Nations Security Council on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Feb. 5, 2003. (James Estrin/The New York Times)Condoleezza Rice, left, the Bush administration’s national security adviser, with Secretary of State Colin Powell in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Feb. 25, 2004. The State Department has discovered a dozen emails containing classified information that were sent to the personal email accounts of Powell and close aides of Rice during their tenures as secretaries of state for President George W. Bush. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)Former Secretary of State Colin Powell waves alongside his wife, Alma, left, before President Barack Obama speaks during a visit to Benjamin Banneker Academic High School in Washington, Oct. 17, 2016, where he highlighted the steady increase in graduation rates. (Al Drago/The New York Times)President Barack Obama meets with former Secretary of State Colin Powell in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on Dec. 1, 2010. The two met to discuss issues ranging from education and efforts to reduce the high school drop-out rate to the importance of ratifying the New START Treaty. (Drew Angerer/The New York Times)Secretary of State Colin Powell taking reporters questions as he held his first news conference of the year commenting on the range of international issues facing the Bush Administration in its fourth year, at the State Department in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2004. With the problems in Iraq and the war on terrorism still at the top of the agenda, Powell also talked about diplomatic challenges with China, North Korea, the Middle East, Libya and Iran. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)Former President Clinton is greeted by Secretary of State Colin Powell, as, from seated from left, former President Jimmy Carter, his wife Rosalyn, former President Gerald Ford and his wife Betty, look on at the National Cathedral in Washington, Friday, June 11, 2004. All were attending the funeral service of former President Ronald Reagan. (Stephen Crowley/The New York Times)After addressing the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 14, 2003, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell read a note from British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw that began, “Colin, you made a good speech.” Powell pressed reluctant allies during his speech to threaten force if Iraq did not disarm. The intelligence used during Powell’s presentation was later questioned. (Ruby Washington/The New York Times)
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