By Herb BoydAmsterdam Information
Charles Bernard Rangel, the previous congressman from Harlem, and the final remaining founding father of the Congressional Black Caucus, has died at age 94. Rangel handed away on Might 26, Memorial Day, surrounded by household.
At his dying, the Harlem native was the lone surviving member of the legendary Gang of 4, a gaggle of profitable politicians from Harlem. He took his popularity because the “Lion of Lenox Avenue” to the Home of Representatives in 1971 after defeating the famend Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. The head of his tenure in Congress was in 2007 when he grew to become chairman of the Home Methods and Means Committee.
“All through his profession, Congressman Rangel fought tirelessly for reasonably priced housing, city revitalization, honest tax insurance policies, and equal alternatives for all Individuals,” his household stated in an announcement.
In his autobiography, Rangel claimed he by no means had a foul day since he survived an assault by the Chinese language and the North Korean armies when he served within the Korean Struggle, “nevertheless it doesn’t imply I haven’t had some heartbreaking experiences,” he wrote, notably noting the lack of his brother. “Setbacks I’ve had; however dangerous days, no.”
“Charlie was a transformative chief; he used his political place to raise the individuals he represented. He was accessible and all the time out there to anybody who got here to him for help. He demonstrated that political figures might be honorable and function nice examples for younger individuals to observe. From Harlem, he made his mark on the nation. He’ll all the time be remembered as a warrior for justice and equality,” stated former NYS State Comptroller H. Carl McCall in an announcement to the AmNews.
“It’s sadly acceptable that my shut good friend and mentor ‘The Lion Of Lenox Avenue’ the good Charles B. Rangel would transition on Memorial Day,” stated Lloyd Williams, president and CEO of the Larger Harlem Chamber of Commerce (GHCC). “Rangel was a real American hero, having been awarded the distinguished Purple Coronary heart when preventing for our nation in the course of the Korean Struggle within the 1950’s. Rangel will certainly go down in historical past as one of the necessary and efficient members of Congress. He’ll actually be missed internationally, nationwide all through New York, however particularly in his beloved Harlem the place ‘he was the person.’”
Former Assemblymember Keith Wright instructed the AmNews that Rangel was a “political genius and a private function mannequin. The Harlem group, the state, and the nation are lucky to have had Charlie Rangel in our lives. His legacy is cemented in perpetuity.”
Throughout an interview with The HistoryMakers in 2018, Rangel recounted his early years coming of age on the streets of Harlem. “I got here up from nothing,” he stated, “I used to be a fatherless highschool dropout with a present of dwelling by my wits and hiding my inadequacies behind bravado.” On the age of twenty-two, he stated, “I used to be pushing a hand truck within the gutters of New York’s garment district for a dwelling…But someway, by age 30, I had acquired three levels in six years, and was a newly minted lawyer admitted to the New York Bar.”
Rangel’s rise from poverty to management in Congress started on June 11, 1930, when he was born in Harlem. Raised by his mom, grandfather and his uncle Herbert, he attended P.S. 89, Junior Excessive Faculty 139, and later DeWitt Clinton Excessive Faculty, the place he did nicely as a scholar. After dropping out of highschool, he enlisted within the U.S. Military. He served in the course of the Korean Struggle and was significantly wounded in fight, and obtained the Bronze Star and Purple Coronary heart.
“My coronary heart is damaged by the passing of a lion of Harlem in the present day,” the Rev. Al Shapton stated in an announcement. “I met Charlie Rangel as a teen and we fashioned a bond that lasted over 50 years. Charlie was a real activist — we’ve marched collectively, been arrested collectively and painted crack homes collectively. After surviving the horrors of the Korean Struggle, he made day by day of his life rely — whether or not it was coming dwelling to get a regulation diploma or changing into a fixture on the Home of Representatives.”
On the rise
Upon discharge from the navy, Rangel enrolled at New York College, earned his bachelor’s diploma in 1957, and three years later, a regulation diploma from St. John’s College Regulation Faculty. A working man all through his life, he was keen on recalling his job as an evening desk clerk on the Resort Theresa, Harlem’s Waldorf-Astoria.
“At nights once I labored, it was Grand Central Station for the largest Black stars of stage and display, the highest athletes, the best rollers, and all of the inevitable low-life hangers-on,” he wrote in his autobiography.
In 1961, Legal professional Common Robert Kennedy appointed Rangel assistant U.S. legal professional for the Southern District of New York. Six years later, he received election to the New York State Meeting.
However solely specializing in his first elected workplace, he misses two highlights of his life: His marriage to Alma Carter in 1964 and the 54-mile trek he made with others from Selma to Montgomery in 1965.
“I cursed each step of these fifty-four miles, questioning how the hell did I begin marching with these redneck nationwide guard troops for an escort,” he wrote. “Individuals in each home we handed alongside the way in which known as us the whole lot below the solar, and threw issues at us. Each retailer performed ‘Bye, Bye Blackbird’ from loudspeakers.”
One man, he recalled, requested him if he needed a bathe since they have been sleeping in tents scattered across the fields. “We met and climbed into this damaged down automotive on a dust street,” Rangel continued, “and as this overcrowded automotive took off within the darkness, we noticed that we have been being adopted. Rattling, have been we scared. We sped up, rotated, and gave up all ideas of showering –– all we needed to do was get again to our group.”
Due to the affect of J. Raymond Jones, referred to as “The Harlem Fox” for his political sagacity, Rangel’s political profession was launched, having succeeded Percy Sutton for the eleventh A.D. It was additionally the start of a lifelong friendship with Sutton that later morphed into the forging of the Gang of 4, which included Basil Paterson and David Dinkins.
With Rep. Powell battling most cancers and spending an excessive amount of time in another country, Rangel was amongst a cadre of younger politicians who started to speak about unseating the invincible congressman.
On a number of events, Rangel was in Powell’s firm when he assembled residents to show his energy. As soon as on the Rooster bar, the place Powell held forth, “I’d gone alone, which was silly,” Rangel admitted in his autobiography. Powell had all of his boosters and followers ready to voice a refrain of “Sure, Congressman!”
“I used to be nonetheless brand-new as a district chief, and I used to be as soon as once more overly impressed with the invitation to fulfill Adam. However the assembly was all about ‘So…you’re the brand new man on the block … you’re the sensible one … You’re this and that.’ I discovered a lesson from that assembly, and I remembered everybody who was there.” For the subsequent few years, he stated, the assembly haunted him.
Taking over a legend and establishing his personal legacy
On Feb. 20, 1970, Rangel introduced his run towards Powell, and in doing so, gave up his Meeting seat. Because it turned out, Rangel narrowly defeated Powell, by no means needing the Republican poll line. “I received the Democratic major in June by 150 votes,” Rangel stated. And he defeated Powell when the latter challenged the result within the Supreme Courtroom. “All I needed to actually do,” he stated in regards to the contest, “was dominate the vote in my district…and that, you would possibly say, was my margin of victory,” he stated.
Rangel hit the bottom working, having soundly defeated the Republican candidate within the common election. He was hardly in his seat when he grew to become a co-founder of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) in 1971. The CBC was the preliminary step in solidifying the beneficial properties of the Civil Rights Motion. Among the many first legislative strikes by Rangel was to distance himself from Powell’s shadow with concerted campaigns towards medication. However he was most pleased with his three articles towards President Nixon, above and past the Judiciary Committee, in 1974. In 1983, Rangel grew to become chair of the Choose Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Management and was subsequently appointed a deputy whip for the Home Democratic management, a place he maintained till 1993.
Because the consensus on the best way to deal with the drug disaster shifted amongst progressives, Rangel advanced from a cussed proponent of utilizing prosecution and regulation enforcement to stomp out the blight to an advocate for reform. In a 1990 article on President Bush’s new drug technique, the AmNews wrote about Rangel that “he was involved that ‘there was nothing within the up to date technique which addresses the foundation explanation for drug abuse.’” He went on to say, “The necessity to assault the foundation causes of drug abuse can’t be neglected.”
A yr later, below federal laws authored by Rangel and signed into regulation by President Clinton, the Higher Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ) was created. It was established to help residents who had the best focus of poverty, in accordance with the 1990 Census. Regardless of the occasion, the UMEZ was all the time talked about amongst Rangel’s most vital contributions to the Harlem group. However his crowning achievement as a congressman got here in 2007 when he grew to become the primary African American to chair the Home Methods and Means Committee.
Rangel was additionally a champion for the Caribbean, advocating first for a normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba and later for Haitian refugees. In a 1993 article, Rangel instructed the AmNews, “It’s time to finish the Chilly Struggle in our hemisphere.” Later, including “Cuba poses no menace in any respect to the U.S.”
On behalf of Haitian refugees, Rangel stated, “The explosive state of affairs in Haiti calls for forthright motion by our authorities to guard Haitian refugees in any means doable.” He added, “With the ever-present menace of violence in Haiti, we should put an instantaneous finish to the deportations. It has been an inhumane coverage from the beginning that we follow towards no different nationality.”
As chair of the Methods and Means Committee, Rangel led the financial restoration after a horrible recession in 2008. He performed a key function within the Democrats’ landmark well being care invoice, the Affected person Safety and Reasonably priced Care Act. Throughout a committee listening to, Rangel stated, “Now we have an ethical obligation by way of the quantity of people that have misplaced their properties, gone into chapter 11 on account of the prices of offering well being care.”
For a congressman who typically proclaimed he hadn’t had a foul day since being wounded in the course of the Korean Struggle, there, as he admitted, have been a number of setbacks, none extra crucial than a string of ethics violations, through which he was accused of accepting rent-controlled residences in Harlem at values far under market. When he challenged these costs, it merely exacerbated his state of affairs and led to disclosures of unpaid taxes. The top results of the continued dispute, with Rangel denying any wrongdoing, led to his go away of absence a couple of days earlier than President Obama enacted the Reasonably priced Care Act in 2010. Finally, the Ethics Committee discovered he violated virtually the entire costs towards him and voted 9 to 1 to censure him. The total Home voted unanimously to censure the primary consultant to bear such therapy in a era.
In the course of the 2010 election, Rangel, his popularity considerably blemished, narrowly defeated the challengers within the Democratic major. Even so, the handwriting was on the wall, his affect diminished, and he was briefly relieved of his chairmanship of the Methods and Means Committee however stayed a member of the committee. Amongst his final acts in Congress earlier than retiring after the 114th Congress was as a rating member of the Subcommittees on Commerce.
His lengthy tenure in Congress might have come to an finish however the “Lion of Lenox Avenue” was not with out his status in Harlem, notably on the Metropolis Faculty of New York the place he helmed the Charles B. Rangel Infrastructure Workforce Initiative, absolutely ready to usher within the subsequent era of expert professionals to fulfill the calls for of a altering trade. Having served in New York’s fifteenth Congressional District for practically half a century, his new workplace at Metropolis Faculty has develop into an incubator, bridging schooling and alternative. It was simply one other means of perpetuating his management, carrying on what he had carried out beforehand in Congress on the varied committees and subcommittees, with UMEZ, and his dedication to upend apartheid in South Africa.
Whilst he basked within the solar on the seashore at Punta Cana within the Dominican Republic, spending valuable time together with his spouse, Alma – who died in 2024 – and reflecting on his two kids and grandchildren, Rangel was ruminating on his legacy and different points nonetheless to be resolved.
On the shut of his autobiography, he stated, “I’ve spent all of my life getting ready this case (his assembly with St. Peter on the gates of Heaven). It would embrace the Caribbean Basin Initiative, the African Progress and Alternative Act, the Empowerment Zones, and the Rangel Low-Earnings Housing Credit, amongst many different issues, within the Congressional File. And if St. Peter’s not overly impressed with my legislative report, then I’ll simply have to inform him that I did the most effective I might. And if I achieve getting a room with a view, then I can actually say that I haven’t had a foul time.”
This story was reprinted with permission from the Amsterdam Information. The unique article can ve discovered at this hyperlink: https://amsterdamnews.com/information/2025/05/26/former-us-congressman-charlie-rangel-dies/
